Where does the Green Beacon project team work?
The Green Beacon team can work either at our client's offices or in the Green Beacon solution lab. Regardless of location, our team always has immediate access to our senior technical staff for guidance and advice on any issue that may arise during a project and management from a senior member of the Green Beacon organization.
If the project team works at the client's offices, we rely on our client to provide office space and access to network resources (servers, internet, printers, etc.). Reasonable travel and living expenses are billed to our clients either directly or can be incorporated into the hourly consulting rate.
What is the typical makeup of a project team?
Green Beacon's project teams are typically made up of three types of resources:
1. Solution Architects are executives responsible for overseeing the overall success of the project and for facilitating strategy and design sessions.
2. Technical Architects are senior staff with extensive business and technical experience across clients, industries, and vendors, and are responsible for project management, technical design, managing project resources and tasks, developing complex code, documentation, and ensuring successful project delivery.
3. Developers have proven expertise in the Microsoft development framework and a specific vendor's platform. Developers are responsible for developing project solutions, documentation, participation in design sessions and status meetings, and for system and user testing.
How does Green Beacon manage project budgets and timeframes?Green Beacon is committed to the on-time and on-budget delivery of projects. To support that process, our team implements the following best practices.
- Intensive Requirements Gathering: Before the project starts, the Green Beacon team works with clients to develop a firm understanding of the requirements of the project.
- Estimate Development: Our project team will document the proposed solution in a proposal and a Work Order / Statement of Work that will detail the key functionality to be developed and any assumptions that were used in the development of the work estimates. Estimates are reviewed by executive staff to ensure consistency across clients and projects.
- Weekly Project Status: Once a project initiates, our team schedules weekly project status meetings with key client stakeholders. During the status meetings, the Green Beacon Technical Architect reviews the project plan, project status report, and any outstanding issues and risks. Our team works closely with clients to manage the scope, budget, and timeframe against the estimate.
- Change Requests: If there are changes that require a change in scope, budget, or timeframe, a formal Change Request is developed and delivered to the client for approval. Work on the Change Request does not begin until the Change Request has been approved by both the client and Green Beacon.
What is the Green Beacon Project Methodology?
Some key components of Green Beacon Solution's project delivery methodology include:
Functional and Technical Design
- Review functional requirements and business processes of the users affected by the project.
- Review Technical Architecture for the deployment of the solution.
- Define any data migration or integration requirements.
- Define roles and responsibilities for both the Green Beacon and client resources.
Project Management
Green Beacon is committed to the successful delivery of the project. Maintaining ongoing communication throughout the project will ensure that issues and risks are identified and handled appropriately and in a timely fashion. Status reports are distributed during weekly status meetings to notify the project leaders about progress, milestones, budget, risks and issues.
Testing
Prior to deployment, the Green Beacon and client team will unit test the application against both the technical and functional / business requirements gathered in the design sessions. This ensures that the solution functions from both a technical and a user perspective.
Training
Green Beacon has developed and delivered training presentations that range from complete application overviews to focused user sessions.
Green Beacon can offer a few alternatives to training.
- Train the Trainer -Green Beacon will conduct training to a few Power Users in order to facilitate training to end users.
- End User Training - Green Beacon will conduct training to end users and power users where the Green Beacon resource will be the primary trainer for each training session
Deployment
- Deployment of the application in the production environment
- Testing of the new application prior to releasing the application to users
Support
After deployment, a Green Beacon resource will provide support with any immediate issues. After that period, Green Beacon will provide phone support for up to 2 weeks regarding any bugs or questions.