Our Methodology: Exploration

This is where you and the Depressed Press meet and discuss your inspiration. In the broadest possible terms this is where we help you to define business problems and seek to identify challenges and solutions.

The Proposal

If, after these initial discussions both parties are still interested in working together the Depressed Press will create a formal proposal.

The proposal is an initial attempt at quantifying your general needs, timeline, and costs. In most cases this sizing of the project is very rough being based upon our past experience and will almost always change. The confidence level we can attach to this sizing is generally not more than 65% but often as low as 50%.

The proposal is basically a formalized agreement to move forward. Both parties can then comfortably set aside time and resources.

Definition Document

After acceptance of the proposal one or a series of collaborative meetings between you and the Depressed Press results in the Definition document. In creating this document we seek to define your audience, business problems, technical parameters, and personal preferences. We use role-playing, competitive reviews, market analysis, and word-association to uncover this information.

We are basically making educated assumptions during this phase. Assumptions about your customers, features, and priorities. These assumptions will be validated later while creating specification documents for the project. The definition document also allows you and the DepressedPress to agree on terms and ideas related to the project.

The end result of this phase is a formalized document to be reviewed and accepted by you. After sign-off we freeze the feature set: changes after this point may adversely affect timelines and cost. We end this phase with the delivery of a revised sizing representing a confidence level of up to 75%. The total amount of time and effort spent in this phase is directly related to the size and complexity of the project.