Conceiving an Application
Traditionally, conceiving an application happens without overt activity. Rather, a business person sees a business opportunity, recognizes a legacy-system limitation, or must meet new regulatory requirements, and requests an application to fill a gap, create an opportunity, improve services, generate revenues, et cetera.
Typically, new applications ideas bounce around, based on priorities, until IT has time to look into the request. During a first look, IT typically determines a strategy that is compatible with legacy systems, ballpark estimates costs, and awaits (or pushes for) approval to proceed with detailed planning that is often costly and time-consuming. Normally, detailed planning does not include gathering requirements (which must be done later in the traditional applications life cycle).
Conceiving an application - the TenFold Way
In the TenFold Way, conceiving an application is a three-step process with specific outputs:
| TenFold Way step | Description |
| 1. Having the idea | Generally, the idea for an application arises just as it does today. A business person sees a business opportunity, recognizes a legacy-system limitation, or must meet new regulatory requirements, and requests an application to fill a gap, create an opportunity, improve services, generate revenues, et cetera. |
| 2. Doing an ApplicationsCall | An ApplicationsArchitect leads a one-hour teleconference of interested parties including one who can answer questions about the application, its data, its end-users, and its data connections. By the end of the teleconference, the ApplicationsArchitect generally understands the application and determines a strategy. (See Typical ApplicationsCall Questions for more information.) |
| 3. Drafting an ApplicationsProposal |
After an ApplicationsCall, an ApplicationsArchitect prepares an Applications Project Proposal and Applications Project Estimate in 4-8 hours.
In TenFold Consulting, a formal proposal describes the application, explains the basic approach to building and integrating it with the existing applications architecture, and estimates cost and timeframe for all applications-project phases, including data conversion and implementation. In an IT organization, this process is less formal, but provides the same deliverables to decision-makers and stakeholders. In TenFold Consulting, two independent people estimate to collect contrasting views and opinions. |