Methodology
Inside our Agile approach to delivering high-impact technology solutions
At TOPS, we strongly emphasize understanding your objectives from day one. By clearly defining requirements upfront, we ensure every solution is tailored to your needs and delivered on time and within budget. Our development methodology is less a process and more of a strategy. We align design, technology, and execution to ensure each project is delivered with efficiency. How we deliver with precision
Proven development journey
Our development process moves through inception, transition, and deployment phases, all guided by modern software engineering practices.
Focused execution
With each iteration, we prioritize what matters most, whether it’s design, development, or testing. Teams work in sync to remove bottlenecks and address issues early.
Visual & adaptive
Through visual modeling and constant monitoring, we ensure your solution adapts and evolves with your business processes and operations..
The development process: We build it your way
Our development process is rooted in flexibility, where we adopt a method suitable for your project’s needs, scale and budget.
Agile Development
Ideal if your project requirements evolve or require iterative releases. We build software in small, manageable sprints, enabling continuous feedback, faster turnaround, and the flexibility to shift priorities. Instead of waiting for complete requirements, we focus on what’s crucial for your next needed release plan.
With a strong focus on quality, we follow Test-Driven Development (TDD), where we write automated tests before the actual code. This way, we catch issues early, build reliable features faster, and keep the codebase clean. We keep you involved at every step to ensure we’re building in the right direction.
Waterfall Development
If your requirements are clearly defined from the start, we adopt a Waterfall approach where each phase is executed in a structured and sequential manner, leaving no room for surprises later. This approach provides comprehensive documentation, accurate timelines, and predictable deliverables.
Our development team ensures that each phase is completed before moving on to the next. This way, we can adhere to strict project timelines, compliance, and heavy documentation needs. We rigorously plan so that the timeline and project costs are known upfront, giving you full confidence in your project’s delivery.
Hybrid Development
For complex projects that require a mix of fixed requirements and evolving components, we employ a hybrid approach. This methodology combines the best of both methods – the predictability of Waterfall with the adaptability of Agile. It provides an ideal balance for enterprise solutions with multi-phased implementations.
A hybrid solution allows us to maintain reliability where it matters most and remain Agile where priorities may shift. In the end, you are presented with a development process that supports complex implementations while staying aligned with your business needs.
Software development services: What we do
We employ a well-defined structure to craft and deliver your tailor-made solution with competence.
We understand your business needs, workflow, challenges, and objectives. Through collaborative interviews, we map out your short-term and long-term objectives.
Purpose kickoff
- Establish initial communication channels and ground rules, along with a team introduction.
- Set up the project overview and goals, establish a logistics and communication plan, determine the ideal custom software development process, and define success criteria.
Information gathering & documentation
- Collect all necessary information from existing systems, stakeholders, and documentation to understand the major challenges and pain points, as well as the desired future state.
- Conduct collaborative sessions with multiple stakeholders to generate ideas and refine processes to draft a set of functional and non-functional requirements.
Requirement validation
- Ensure that the documented requirements are complete and accurately reflect the stakeholders’ needs.
- Conduct reviews and walkthroughs
This is where all the ‘whats’ from the requirements turn into ‘hows’. Our technical experts select the technology and design an architecture that is secure, reliable, and ensures ease of development.
Planning & resource allocation
- Create a detailed framework for project execution, such as timelines, budget, resources, and risk management.
- Review designs and obtain formal approval.
Architecture design
- Determine the framework, including its components, major interactions, and tech choices.
- Plan scalability & performance design, and illustrate how high-level data flows through major components.
User experience design
- Map out user journeys with a step-by-step path and organize and structure content logically.
- Create wireframes of pages to screens and apply branding, color schemes, and typography to create an intuitive user interface.
Our developers at TOPS develop software iteratively, delivering usable features quickly and adapting to feedback. The type of development approach (Agile, Waterfall, or Hybrid) depends on your specific needs.
Coding & implementation
- Our developers write code for individual features or modules as defined in the design phase. Other developers review them to ensure quality and adherence to coding standards.
Documentation & integration
- Create and update technical documentation such as API, inline code comments, and design notes.
- Connect different modules and the newly built system to existing legacy systems, third-party APIs, and other services.
We take quality testing very seriously. At TOPS, we perform quality checks at every stage of the lifecycle and follow the top practices of design, development, and deployment. We identify and fix any errors before the software is deployed for use.
Strategic testing
- Our teams systematically verify that the software meets all functional and non-functional requirements.
- Test the unit, integrations, system, and regression testing to ensure every feature works as intended.
User-acceptance testing
- Secure your final approval by confirming the software meets your business needs & expectations.
- Involve key stakeholders directly with the software
We do a final round of detailed testing and user training before releasing your software into the production environment. We handle everything from deployment to versioning and minimizing downtime.
Strategic deployment planning
- Plan the go-live process and anticipate and mitigate potential risks.
- Collaborate with teams to ensure environment readiness, precise timing, data migration plans, and rollback procedures.
Automated & phased Release
- Our teams ensure a smooth, controlled, and efficient transition to the live environment.
- We use Continuous Delivery (CD) principles and automation tools to streamline the deployment process.
We go beyond launch and continue to monitor, support, and enhance your product so it stays secure, up-to-date, and future-ready. We test the software for production tuning, regular backup, scaling, and uptime monitoring.
Scaling up
- Continuously monitor post-launch, refactor code, and add new features based on your growing business demands.
- Look for future performance optimization and infrastructure scaling opportunities.
Issue detection & resolution
- We diagnose and resolve any operational or performance issues post launch.
- Our support team is equipped to respond rapidly to alerts and reporting tickets.
Tools that make it possible
We rely on a list of powerful tools that help us enhance workflows, improve communication, and deliver quick results.
