Software development project lifecycle at InterLink, Ukraine

Frequently Asking Questions (F.A.Q.) about company and services

Question list:

What are the advantages to outsourcing software development projects to InterLink?

InterLink has over 10 years of experience providing offshore software engineering services for customers worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies. Products developed by InterLink for its customers are successfully sold all over the world. References are available upon request.

InterLink has a rigorous personnel selection process followed by extensive advanced training. This allows the company to maintain a large resource pool of the "best of breed" developers, QA engineers and project managers. With 30 technical specialists located in Ukraine, InterLink is capable of performing effectively to benefit customers.

InterLink has successfully completed more than 100 projects in various fields of information technology and businesses. InterLink distinguishes itself by its demonstrated ability to provide its customers with high-end eBusiness and technology solutions (including math and science intensive) of the highest quality.

InterLink has a proprietary Software Creative Process (ISCP) software development methodology. The ISCP methodology utilizes a combination of industry standard project management and software development techniques along with InterLink derived best practices. This methodology guarantees results and allows us to better serve our customers with regards to quality, extensibility, and time to commercial release and include behaviour diven development, refactoing, automated functionality testing, peer code review and othes.

InterLink provides full cycle software development services; from business analysis and project design to integration and ongoing support services. InterLink specialists are often invited by customers to provide on site IT consulting services and training seminars.

The software development process at InterLink is entirely transparent to a customer. InterLink's Project Management Portal (PMP) is a web-enabled, highly secure virtual project space, which allows a customer to monitor a project in real time. Specifically, a customer may view project documentation and status reports, check if a project is within schedule and budget, see bug report statistics, send requests for changes, communicate with a project team, etc.

InterLink develops and implements a proven methodology for low risk, cost-effective outsourcing cooperation models. Besides, InterLink provides offshore outsourcing consulting services to help companies all over the world develop a win-win, low risk strategy and execution plan to outsource their software development projects to Ukraine.

InterLink helps Western corporations set up Global Outsourcing or Dedicated Offshore Development Centers in Ukraine. InterLink has successful experience in building outstanding infrastructure for developing offshore outsourced projects, has a proprietary training center, utilizes all the advantages from the onsite/offsite software development model and possesses good connections and relationships with local government institutions and authorities. This can bring significant value and save time and money for those companies seeking to outsource their development facilities to Ukraine.

Describe InterLink's software expertise.

Languages/Protocols: Java (J2SE/J2EE), Microsoft .Net Framework (C#, VB, VC++), Ruby on Rails, Groovy, JavaScript, VBScript, Delphi, Pascal, SQL, Assembler, Active Server Pages/Java Server Pages, C/C++

Operating Systems: Unix/Linux, Microsoft Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista, Palm/OS and Palm Computing Platform

B2B/EAI Platforms Microsoft BizTalk, IBM, WebSphere Business

Database Platforms Oracle, MS SQL, IBM DB2, Sybase, Informix, MySQL, PosgreSQL

Wireless Applications WAP/WML

Web Servers and Technologies Microsoft IIS, Apache, Netscape Enterprise Server, Cold Fusion, COM/DCOM/MTS/COM+, SOAP/CORBA/IIOP, JSP/Servlets/ASP/PHP/CFM

What types of cross-industry IT expertise does InterLink have?

InterLink has expertise in virtually all technologies including .NET, J2EE and Wireless with deep domain expertise in:

How large is your software development staff?

InterLink employs over 30 software development professionals located in Cherkasy, Ukraine. Most have earned advanced degrees in mathematics, computer science, and engineering and have attained industry certifications.

Describe your service delivery model.

InterLink combines an extensive Ukrainian resource pool with strong onsite co-project management to provide all of the benefits of offshore delivery while minimizing complexity and risk. English-speaking, multicultural project managers act as liaisons between the developers in Ukraine and the customer, ensuring clear understanding of a customer's business problems and the IT requirements to solve them. Project managers are responsible for day-to-day communications and status monitoring, while helping customers maintain continuous insight into and ultimate control of their projects.

Client engagements are built around dedicated project teams. Each team is self-managed and fully supports the project implementation (excluding support activities such as accounting, system management, and other shared functions). The project flow is defined by implementation procedures and client requirements using an iterative-incremental approach that allows for early risk mitigation and experimentation on complex solutions. This approach facilitates solution modifications at each step and provides insight into successive project stages for the development team and the client. The same client-centric values are at the heart of InterLink's approach to communication, project documentation, requirements management, knowledge transfer, and intellectual property protection. The company is responsible for all the activities and procedures required for a productive and secure communication environment. This responsibility starts with regular on-site visits throughout the project life cycle. It includes securing Web-enabled individualized project management portals and ensuring that the entire software development process is entirely transparent to customers. InterLink's requirements-management process starts with a well-defined problem statement and business and technical requirements in the fom of use stoies and acceptance criterions, which are used to establish and maintain a shared understanding of responsibilities and expectations. Requirements statements become living project plans after they have been documented and approved by the customer, and they form the basis for estimating, planning, performing, and tracking activities, as well as for managing change requests.

To further ensure effective project control and execution, InterLink has developed a centralized, Web-based project management portal (PMP) for consolidating and managing key project data and processes. The portal is a secure workspace that enables customers to view and perform project management activities, to communicate comments, and to change requests to their offshore counterparts. InterLink also takes a multi-pronged approach to protecting clients' vital intellectual property, maintaining a staff that has experience working in military and other government and commercial controlled-access working environments in Ukraine. Access to project documentation and source code is strictly controlled, and project teams and development platforms are physically separated as appropriate. InterLink affords clients full legal protection through standard software services agreements that are backed by individually signed NDAs.

Describe the Roles and Responsibilities of this project team structure.

Unlike traditional, monolithic outsourcing "factories" with cheap offshore programmers to code to recipe-like specifications, InterLink is a software engineering service provider focused on problem solving and producing results. Our engineering approach relies heavily on years of Soviet scientific tradition, which placed a premium on problem solving, rather than on the conveyor approach of churning out coders, as quickly as possible. This heritage of engineering excellence combined with the economic advantages of utilizing our software development centers in Ukraine helps propel InterLink to the forefront of offshore outsourcing vendors.

InterLink has a project-oriented organizational structure. This means that the company management is built around project teams that are the primary cells of the company. This structure has a number of advantages in comparison with a standard department-oriented organizational structure.

The project team is a self-managed team. The project flow is defined by the project implementation procedures and by customer requirements.

The core of a project team consists of the following members:

The project team is a complete team fully supports the project implementation.

Project Manager

This person is in charge of the entire project as well as the direct management of the project team and is personally responsible for the success of the project.

Project Management

Task Management

Oversee the project tasks provided by team Leads (designer, developer and QA engineer) focusing on:

Resource Management

Manage the resource allocation within the project.

Deliverables

Project Reporting

Designer/Architect

The Designer is responsible for development of requirements and design documents as well as tracking any change requests against project design/requirements.

Duties

Lead Developer

The Lead Developer is responsible for project implementation in accordance with previously developed requirements and design documents.

Duties

Lead QA Engineer

The Lead QA Engineer is responsible for project testing in accordance with previously developed requirements and design documents.

Duties

What project phases are you typically involved in?


InterLink has the skills and experience to offer full-cycle software engineering services.

What methodology/processes do you use?

InterLink's employs its Software Creative ProcessT development methodology comprising the following components at each project phase.

Requirements Gathering

Cover all aspects of the project

Development

Quality Assurance effort initiated at the very beginning of the project

Describe your Project Management Process.

InterLink has a practical and thorough Project Management methodology. We have a formal process for our integrated delivery model that is too detailed to include here, but we'd be willing to share this at a more appropriate time.

Unique to InterLink is an internally developed, Web-based Project Management and Tracking portal that we make available to our clients through secure access to allow them 24 x 7 access to our work. We believe that providing complete visibility into our work product is necessary to have effective project management.

What types of deliverables do you complete prior to starting each phase?

Requirements Gathering - Business Analysis, Stakeholder interviews

Technical Design - Requirements

Development -Technical Design

Testing - Test strategy and Test plans

Rollout, User Training - Training Materials

Post-implementation support - SLA

Who is typically responsible for developing test cases, and validating results?

InterLink is responsible for developing and executing test cases. However, tight collaboration is required by the customer to:

What tools and processes do you use to keep the teams aligned?

English is the official language for all documentation

Encourage communications (emails, IM, conference calls, onsite visits)

What approach do you use for creating and communicating design to the development team, and reviewing developed code to ensure it meets design specs?

How do you handle the time difference from a communications perspective?

What is the typical educational level for your staff?

Breakdown of technical staff:

No undergraduate degree - 0%

Undergraduate degree in computer science/related - 5%

Undergraduate degree, non-computer related - 2%

Graduate degree in computer science/related - 81%

Graduate degree, non-computer related - 11%

What kind of training do you provide your staff to stay abreast of the latest technologies and software development tools?

InterLink founded it's own Training Center to serve two purposes: select talented candidates for employment and to develop the skills of InterLink employees. It conducts several technological and process-related courses (about 10 per year). The learning process is devoted to identifying and developing following important skills and traits:

What level of documentation is required in order for InterLink to commit to a firm price, project schedule, and set of deliverables?

For a raw estimation of cost and project duration InterLink needs a Request for Proposal (RFP) with a description of the problem and required solution, technical descriptions of platforms to be supported, etc. For final cost and schedule commitments additional information and/or research may be required.

How do you estimate the level of effort for a fixed time frame and/or fixed price project?

Estimations are made based on proven InterLink experience in the successful implementation of more than 100 projects in various IT technologies. The core of a project team (project manager and leads) is created in the earlier stages of each project and they become familiar with main project features and customer requirements before the development of a Proposal is started.

This serves as a guarantee of quickly starting project implementation. For long, complicated projects, the following may be made to estimate the level of effort and time frame:

Furthermore, InterLink has a knowledge database compiled from all of our completed projects and we can compare a project estimation with similar past projects.

What are the three most important success factors in conducting an offshore project?