A Clear, Milestone-Based Process
Projects are divided into clearly defined stages. Each stage includes an agreed set of features, deliverables, exclusions, costs, and acceptance criteria.
Payment terms are agreed in advance for each milestone. You always know what is being delivered, what it will cost, and how acceptance will be determined.
Stage 1: Initial Conversation
Understand the business, identify the operational problem, understand current workflows, identify users, discuss constraints, and determine whether custom software is appropriate. This conversation is free.
- Understand the business
- Identify the operational problem
- Understand current workflows
- Identify users
- Discuss constraints
- Determine whether custom software is appropriate
Stage 2: Discovery and Definition
Larger or unclear projects may require a paid discovery phase to define scope accurately before milestones are planned.
- Workflow review
- Requirements clarification
- User roles
- Business rules
- Data sources
- Integration requirements
- Security considerations
- AI suitability
- Risks
- Dependencies
- Deployment needs
Stage 3: Milestone Plan
Each milestone defines features, deliverables, exclusions, acceptance criteria, dependencies, schedule, cost, and payment terms. Future milestones may be revised based on lessons from earlier stages.
- Features
- Deliverables
- Exclusions
- Acceptance criteria
- Dependencies
- Estimated schedule
- Fixed milestone cost or agreed billing structure
- Payment terms
Stage 4: Development
Working software is reviewed regularly and kept maintainable. Changes outside the agreed scope are discussed and estimated separately — unlimited changes are not included.
- Progress updates
- Regular working-software review
- Maintainable architecture and implementation
- Separate scope-change discussion
Stage 5: Review and Acceptance
The client tests the milestone against agreed acceptance criteria. Defects within scope are corrected; new features and scope changes are documented separately.
- Acceptance testing
- Defect correction within scope
- Scope-change documentation
Stage 6: Deployment
Moving the milestone into production.
- Production deployment
- Hosting configuration
- Domain setup
- Database setup
- Environment configuration
- Data migration
- Third-party integrations
- Monitoring
- Backups
- Documentation
Stage 7: Handoff and Ownership
You receive what you need to run and maintain the system independently. Secrets are never placed in documentation or source control.
- Source code
- Deployment instructions
- Service inventory
- Account inventory
- Environment setup guidance
- Database documentation
- Integration documentation
- AI provider setup information
- Technical handoff documentation
Stage 8: Optional Support
Support is optional and can be structured however makes sense for your business.
- Maintenance
- Support retainers
- Monitoring
- Security updates
- Additional milestones
- Feature development
- Technical consulting