Obviously the icons above describe a vast over-simplification of code development, so let's think of them as just decoration. In practice, developing solutions, both large and small, requires an arsenal of skills and approaches that are applied as is appropriate for each solution. That is, one size does not fit all. Two of the more common, and opposing, approaches are Agile and Waterfall.

Taking the Best from Agile and Waterfall

Waterfall is a seqential design process that rigidly goes through a series of steps to develop a design that cannot change during the process. If a design needs to change, the entire process must be restarted, discarding any products of the original work. Agile came about as a way to embrace the inevitability of changes, following an incremental approach by always having a complete solution at any point in the process — starting with the simplest one, and continuously adding more until the final solution is done.

We embrace the Agile approach, but start with as much of a design of the final solution as makes sense before writing any code. This ensures that many of the issues will have been foreseen before starting, while not spending too much time on a design that will ultimately change. The Agile employment of daily testing — unit, functional and integration — keeps us on our path, but we also know that only final user testing will ensure we don't "crash into Mars" because, while each component may test successfully, the ultimate system, without final testing, may have a flaw only seen by viewing the big picture, which means end-to-end hands-on user testing.

We believe our process will provide you with the greatest quality software.