Custom Software Development Engagement Process Development Processes and Methodologies Third Party Testing Development Processes and Methodologies The Axa Solutions philosophy is one of partnership with its clients, resulting in the best long-term solution, rather than inserting one-off fixes. The staff has extensive experience in working with all levels of a customer organization from management through technologists to sales and marketing, providing input channels for all concerned stakeholders. Appropriate staff members are available throughout the development process for discussion and incremental auditing of progress to insure that the end product meets customer expectations. The Bulgarian educational system continually provides a large pool of highly qualified candidates, allowing Axa Solutions to continually meet client needs. The staff is formally trained and professionally managed. Axa Solutions employs an unusually rigorous and disciplined candidate selection process: day-long examinations in computer science, logic, and mathematics, interviews with developers, internship based on consensus, followed by probationary period. The staff uses documented industry standard supervision, scheduling, development, and configuration management practices during design, development, test, and source code control. Specifications and communications are in English. Haemimont is managed as an open company. Clients may directly contact project personnel as necessary via telephone, instant messaging, fax and email. Each project requires client-approved documentation of functionality, based either on a client's specification, or a specification created with the client by Axa Solutions and development staff, before a Project Team is assigned. A Project Manager is assigned from among Haemimont's senior staff. The Project Manager will be the primary contact person at Haemimont for day-to-day interactions with the client. The Project Manager is responsible for scheduling and enforcement of development policies. The Project Manager assembles one or more coordinated teams for each project based on needed skills and the abilities of staff members. Each team is typically composed of one senior contributor (acting as lead designer or developer) and five to six staff. Larger teams are composed of units that are multiples of the basic team structure, conserving the ratio of senior staff to staff members. Each member is responsible not only for assigned development, but also for incremental source code management, backup and documentation. The test group, managed separately from development, provides company-wide testing, quality control and reliability assurance services for all development and all deliverable items produced at Haemimont. The overriding attribute that Haemimont wants associated with its products and services is quality. Functions include unit testing, functional testing, regression testing, availability and performance testing, portability and compatibility testing, HTML syntax testing, data quality testing, and conformance testing. The test group maintains independent archiving of all developed code and documents. The test group verifies completeness and accuracy of all deliverables sent to a client and also received from a client, thereby maintaining data integrity in both directions. Each potential change, or error found by staff or client, is entered into a Web-based change and problem reporting system for tracking progress and resolution status. This system can be hosted by the client or maintained by Axa Solutions. © Copyright 2005, Axa Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.