Our Continuous Improvement Programs (CIPs) give organisations the ability to continuously innovate with a targeted monthly program. A CIP provides monthly updates for self-hosted (installed on customer's hardware) systems and customisation services with discounts from 25% to 55%.
stSoftware's CIPs provides iterative customisation's & system updates at a reduced cost, on a planned monthly budget. In this way, a CIP removes the financial and management barriers that can cause an application to become 'static' until End Of Life (EOL) necessitates upgrading. Instead, CIP ensures the timely and cost-effective programming of software upgrades which will maximise performance, minimise software risk & avoid End Of Life (EOL) occurrences. Custom applications are continuously improved to achieve strategic business outcomes and high ROI.
stSoftware has an established upgrade release program with system improvements being released to Production at the end of every Application Development Lifecycle, see diagram below. We recommend self-hosted clients establish a monthly or quarterly upgrade release cycle which combines the latest production release from stSoftware and custom enhancement
At the commencement of your CIP you will be assisted to develop a Product Vision which can be a broad set of goals or a refined list of improvements for your custom application. Your Product Vision is a strategic technology 'wish list', aligned to your current or future business goals. It is a constantly evolving vision which will be further informed by what is learnt and gained from each iteration of the agile development lifecycle and from the standard system upgrades which flow through from stSoftware's own development lifecycle.
By working closely with the stSoftware Development Team you can be strategic with your priorities to take full advantage of the latest system upgrade enhancements.
Your Product Vision is analysed and defined into specific development tasks which create your Product Roadmap. You will prioritise tasks from your roadmap to be completed in the next development cycle, this is called the Development Sprint. The period of your sprint will depend on the number of Days allocated to your CIP. Regardless of the CIP you choose, the reporting is weekly.
You will receive a weekly CIP Report via email which details activities under 4 main phases:
Note the number of phases you see on your report can change depending on the number of items in each phase at any time.
The reports are automatically generated from stSoftware's Project Management System.
The Continuous Improvement Programs are pre-paid and give a discount on capped monthly professional services. The payment is monthly so is easier on cash flow and can be budgeted for. The agreed number of days per month will expire at the end of every month. Additional time per month may be requested which is charged at the standard services rates and invoiced weekly. Our range of CIPs and standards rates are published on our Professional Services pricing page.
The CIP can use any of our professional services such as Consulting and IT Strategy, Analysis, Design and Development. All CIPs have a Minimum Term of 6 months during which the monthly fee remains the same regardless of published price changes and the number of capped days of services is fixed. You can, of course, request to upgrade to a higher CIP at any time and a new CIP 6 month term will commence.
