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After the blueprint
Phase 1 is complete. Now let's dive into what Phase 2 would entail and briefly touch on what's next - Phase 3.
Jacobus van Devnter
In the first part of this series we made the case for the work before the build: Phase 1, Analysis and Design, where an idea becomes a documented, costed, de-risked plan. This is the second part, and it covers the bit everyone pictures when they imagine making software: the build itself.
It's the most visible phase and, oddly, the one people understand least. "We'll develop it and host it" sounds like a single task. It isn't. Development and hosting is where a signed-off design becomes a working product, gets tested until it holds, goes live, and then keeps running.
What Phase 2 actually is
Phase 2, Development and Hosting, is the construction stage of our delivery process. Where Phase 1 produced the plan, Phase 2 produces the product: the front-end build (what users see, from the signed-off design), the back-end (the logic and data model), integration (connecting to the systems it must talk to), cloud and deployment (we are not tied to a single platform — any major cloud, or on-premise, always under your own accounts), and testing (continuous by the dev team and architect, deeper as the product nears completion).
Because Phase 1 did its job, development becomes execution, not discovery, which is why the upfront work pays for itself here.
The team you actually get
A full team, not a lone developer: a project manager keeping the work on track and you informed; a development team; the UX designer who shaped the design in Phase 1, who stays on through the build; and a principal software architect overseeing how it all fits together and holds up.
What you walk away with
Three things, not one: a working, tested product that is live; full ownership of it (code, IP, hosting and accounts all in your name — we manage, you own); and a product that keeps running (hosting, security updates, maintenance).
How we work through it
It builds directly on the Phase 1 blueprint, so there is a clear definition of done. We keep you in the loop with regular demos, usually weekly or every second week, and as early as the product can support it we get you onto the system to use it yourself. A development phase always carries a little variance from the plan — a few percent — and the reason it never derails the project is that the UX designer, project manager, and architect are still on it, so a small adjustment gets folded in cleanly rather than becoming a renegotiation.
How long it takes
It depends mostly on what Phase 1 defined. With the pace of modern development, we usually aim to get a working first version, an MVP, live within around three months, and then keep building from there.
Where this lands
Phase 1 gives you certainty about what you are building. Phase 2 turns that into a working product you own and we keep running. The final part of this series is about Phase 3: Marketing, Momentum and Impact, the work that happens after launch.
