Frequently Asked Question

Below are answers to several questions posed by potential clients who wanted further information on how we undertake our project work. If this does not answer your question, please feel free to seek further clarification by contacting Frank Breeze

What is it you do exactly?
MPC Data Limited offers professional software design and development services. We are active in many market sectors and currently have projects involving telecommunications, several aspects of digital TV, tool-chain development, instrumentation and real-time data acquisition systems.
With all our clients, we are seeking to establish a long-term relationship. It is critical to our success that our clients succeed too! For that reason, we offer our services as a team; we do not hire out individuals on a "body-shop" basis. This gives our clients continuity of service, guaranteeing that they will not be left with an unsupported development.

What services do you provide?
There are basically four types of services we offer:

Consultancy
Formulation of product development strategies, requirements capture, analysis and clarification, project auditing and general consultancy and training on software development.

Project Management
Planning, monitoring and control of multi-disciplinary development projects using internal, external or third-party teams.

Design
Functional specification and software design using appropriate methodologies.

Development
General development tasks, including implementation, testing and release of software.

How much do your services cost?
Our charges rates are based on the type of service undertaken. We do not have rates based on the individual performing the work; of course we ensure the person undertaking the task has the necessary skills for the job! If we are undertaking a complete project, for which there will be elements of consultancy, management, design and development work we may charge the entire project at the development rate.

Will you offer a fixed price for the job?
Yes! (... Although there are some provisos - see below)

Many of our clients want "heads-up" on project costs, they want to be sure up front that they know how much to budget for a development. Software projects are notorious for spiraling costs and timescales. If you are placing such projects with an outside agency, you want to be sure you can control how much that is going to cost.

After more that 17 years in the business and 100s of successfully completed projects, we have built up considerable expertise in our field. We are therefore confident we can quote a fixed price for a development.

When we produce a fixed price quotation, it will include the following:
• Our fixed price for the work!
• The information we used in producing the quote
• Any assumptions we have made in arriving at our price
• What you as a client have to provide to us so we may do the job
• What deliverables you are going to get
• What is excluded ? If we think some elements of the project are not clear enough for us to give a fixed price or if some parts are to be left to a subsequent phase, we will make that clear in the quotation. See the project unknowns question below.

All our quotations are approved by at least one company director.

What if we want a fixed price, but there are still some "unknowns" in the project?
Quite often, there are still unknowns in a project, perhaps areas of work which need clarifying or design decisions that will affect timescales and costs but which cannot be made until later in the development. Nevertheless, a client may still need to have a fixed price for the development cost. We can tackle this in a number of ways:

• Feasibility Study. We would undertake a (relatively small) period of time & materials investigation work that will enable us to give a fixed price quotation for completing the project.

• Multiple Phases. We would provide a fixed price for a first phase of work (perhaps a system design phase) together with a budgetary estimate for subsequent phases. We would provide a budgetary estimate when we are confident of the majority of project costs but there are still some issues that require clarification. After the first phase of work is completed, we would then be in a position to "convert" our budgetary estimate into a fixed price quotation.

• Integration and System Test. In situations where we have to conduct major integrations with third party supplied systems or undertake extensive on-site systems testing, we would perform the majority of the development on a fixed price basis, with these final activities being done time & materials.

What about working entirely on a Time & Materials basis?
Yes, we are happy to work on a Time & Materials basis if that is appropriate.

There might be reasons why this is the case:

• The client is happy for us to work that way. Several of our long-term clients are confident that we are performing the work in the way they want us to. Defining a project for which we can quote a fixed price would necessarily require both us and the client to be clear as to the boundaries of the work. Some times this means the way the development progresses might be less flexible than if we (in conjunction with our client) could reorganise and refocus a development that was already underway. Working on a time & materials basis gives us that flexibility.

• If the cost of determining a fixed price would be excessive. For example, if we are taking over a partial development and there is a lot of code to assimilate or integrate with, we may seek to perform this on a time & materials basis since the costs involved in arriving at a fixed price might be comparable with the costs to complete the work.

Usually, even though we are working on a time & materials basis, we still use the same project planning and estimating techniques as our fixed price work, so the client can still monitor and assess our progress but we are able to be more reactive to changes later in a development cycle.

If I place a contract with you, how do I know how you are going to do the work?
All the work MPC Data undertakes is performed according to our "Software Development Process". The only exception to this rule is if clients have mandated that we use their own development procedures instead.

Our process demands that we generate a Quality Plan when we start work. A Quality Plan defines:

• Those steps of our development process that apply to the rest of the project.
• The people responsible for the execution of each step.
• The people responsible for approving their output.

For example, we may define that we are going to produce (amongst other things) a software design. The Quality Plan will indicate this together with the applicable process standard (in the case of a Software Design, that is MPC-ST6 Software Design Standard). It will show who is going to produce the design and who is going to approve it. Typically the "approvals body" will include the client. The Quality Plan is sent to the client for their approval.

How do I track your progress?
Since we are most often working on a Fixed Price basis and since that means we are shouldering the risks for most of the project overruns, we have over the years, refined our development process to enable us to quickly and easily assess project status. This enables us to take fast and effective steps to keep a project on track.

For most projects, we will produce a Project Plan (as well as a Quality Plan). A Project Plan will include the following:

• Perceived development risks. For example, there might be something we are doing that no one has done before, or there might be concerns over performance etc.

• Dependencies. If we are dependent on the client (or a third-party) delivering equipment, specifications, software modules etc.

• Milestones. Significant dates in the project including payment and delivery milestones.

• Deliverables. A re-iteration of the outputs of the project.
* Resources. The project team members and any specific equipment needed to complete the work.

• Tools. The development tools to be used.

• Activities. The list of tasks to be performed.

• Gantt Chart. A planning chart showing how the activities are to be performed and indicating the latest date by which dependencies must be satisfied and the earliest dates by which milestones will be completed.

The Project Plan is sent to the client for their approval.

It is used as the basis for all subsequent project status meetings. These are held on a regular basis (usually every 1-2 weeks depending on the project). A Company Director or other Senior Staff Member chairs the meetings. The meetings always follow a fixed agenda that considers:

• Risks. Have the identified risks been eliminated? Are there new ones? What can be done to eliminate or lessen the outstanding ones?

• Dependencies. What dependencies are outstanding? Should steps be taken to re-plan our work or to make the client aware that the non-fulfilment of a dependency is affecting project timescales?

• Progress. How are we doing against our plan? Should we reorganise how we are doing the work?

• Quality Plan. Are we continuing to conduct the project according to the Quality Plan we produced at the outset?

The information gathered from the status meeting then enables the Project Manager to keep the client fully informed of the progress of their project.

What happens when the project is finished?
What about warranty? What about the sources?
For Fixed Price Projects, we normally offer a 90-day warranty. Of course other warranty periods can be negotiated and furthermore we are quite willing to continue to support Time & Materials projects after completion.

Subject to the agreement of terms, we will provide source code to the client. For a fuller explanation of these matters, please refer to our standard terms & conditions or contact Alan Rowe.

Because MPC Data Limited provides its services as a company rather than as individuals, we can offer continuity of service over many years. Often performing minor enhancements to systems years after their first implementations.