Implementation Planning

SITUATION

Financial advisors are experts at explaining complex issues to clients and prospects. But a simple sales tool deployed on a mobile platforms offered a high-leverage opportunity for advisors to boost assets under management.

When deadlines are tight, it’s essential that all key stakeholders share similar expectations for features and functionality. A group of executives at a leading financial institution embraced the overall idea, but turned to Digital Foundry to help explore the concept more deeply. Digital Foundry recommended that the client team engage in a planning workshop to provide a detailed roadmap for project success.

SOLUTION

During the planning workshop, our team of consultants and architects led candid discussions with client stakeholders who expanded upon their vision for this mobile tool. The workshop was an effective way to develop a consensus on specific objectives from both a conceptual and a technical architecture perspective.

Gathering this level of insight allowed Digital Foundry to not only provide a detailed project backlog with development estimates, but also identify key assumptions, non-functional requirements, risks, and dependencies to inform the creation of the implementation plan.

The details generated during the workshop were captured in a functional design brief, which defined the infrastructure and interfaces necessary for the application and delivered multiple implementation plan options.  This deliverable included extensive descriptions of beta phase implementation plans, API documentation, project dependencies, and the initial product backlog, all of which are critical to reducing risk and increasing the likelihood of project success.

RESULTS

Through careful planning that began during the initial workshop, Digital Foundry helped our client:

• Explore and validate ideas: Digital Foundry consultants assisted in thoroughly exploring their features and ensuring their functional feasibility.
• Define the service structure: Digital Foundry architects aligned available web services with the data required to meet stakeholder requirements.
• Multiple implementation options: Digital Foundry provided multiple implementation plan options to ensure our Client would get the features they needed on the requisite timeline.