Solution Architect Stage
Know what acceptance will look like before the project starts.
What the stage is
Before anyone is hired, a solution architect writes three documents: the business requirement, the functional specification and the technical specification.
It is a fixed-fee stage of two to four weeks. Nothing is recruited and nothing is built until you have read the three documents and approved them.
Because the documents state what the system has to do, you can see what user acceptance testing (UAT) will look like at the end, before the project has started.
The three documents
Each one is written from the one before it.
Business requirement
What the business needs and why: the goals, the people who will use the system, the processes it has to support and the rules it has to follow.
Functional specification
What the system will do: every function, screen and flow, with the result expected from each. It is written so the business can read it and check it.
Technical specification
How it will be built: the architecture, the data, the integrations with your other systems, the infrastructure and the security.
What UAT looks like, before the project starts
Results are written down
The functional specification states what each function has to do and the result it has to give.
Those results are the test
The same statements are what the finished system is checked against in user acceptance testing.
You approve them first
You read and approve them before the project starts, so what counts as finished is agreed before the build begins.
Who it is for
- A company about to build or rebuild a core system.
- A company that knows what the business needs and has not yet written it down.
- A company that wants to know what it will be accepting before it commits.
Afterwards
Delivery begins against the documents you approved.
Once the three documents are approved, the team is recruited, trained and managed under Technology Leadership Services, and the finished system is accepted against the tests agreed in this stage.