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ASF's Professional Services can help development organizations achieve real results through:

• information technology management consulting;
• software and system architecture design, evaluation, reconstruction, visualization, documentation, assistance and coaching; and
• project-focused consulting, just-in-time education and mentoring.

Information system organizations must produce business software applications faster and at a lower cost while making these applications adaptable to rapidly changing business and technology environments. Almost daily, the computer industry offers new tools to "help." Yet information technology professionals are demanding support in getting their jobs done -- not just more tools. In addition, IT organizations must meet the challenges of:

• increasing demand for new applications;
• ongoing maintenance of existing applications;
• a need for higher quality and more complex systems; and 
• the internet.

It's a daunting task overcoming these cultural and technological obstacles. There is a solution, however.

Business-Centric Object-Oriented Development, combined with Component Technology, provides an enabling set of techniques and technologies that allows organizations to build flexible software from existing parts that embody policies and rules of the business. IT organizations who harness the power of this combination then can meet the demands of 21st century business.

ASF's technology management consulting services concentrate on:

• strategic planning and organizational redesign to create focused, effective information technology organizations;
• organizational and personnel assessement to provide a benchmark and roadmap for change;
• cultural change management assistance to smooth the transition to the new organization, techniques and technologies;
• education and knowledge transfer to teach the principles behind the wave of new techniques and technologies; and
• architectural and process mentoring to help technologists apply these principles to actual projects.

Austin Software Foundry's architecture design and evaluation services concentrate on:

• architectural evaluation designed to assess the modifiability, usability and reliability of existing software and systems;
• architectural reconstructions designed to create graphical illustrations of architectural views from existing source code; and
• architectural design and mentoring to provide development teams with a mature approach to software architecture, and to transfer knowledge to members of the client team.

Austin Software Foundry's project-focused consulting services concentrate on:

• business process analysis to understand specific problems and establish requirements for technology support;
• software requirements analysis to transform a business problem into requirements suitable for object development;
• project planning and management to control an interative, rapid application development process;
• architectural design and engineering to structure an application for deployment in a distributed or internet environment; and
• component specification, identification and acquisition or construction to create modular applications.

Creating organizations who can consistently deliver applications that embody the characteristics of Business-Centric Object-Oriented Development and Component Technology is Austin Software Foundry's primary objective for all of its clients. Through years of work with Fortune 1000 companies around the world, ASF has developed an approach designed to achieve this result as quickly and as reliably as is possible with a major transition like this.

The principles, techniques and tools surrounding object and component development represent a paradigm shift in the way software is created. Our "Proof-of-Concept-to-Pathfinder-to-Pilot" approach achieves two major objectives for our clients:

• a structured and graduated immersion in the new techniques and tools that results in mastery and confidence; and
• development of internal mentors who can work throughout the organization to enable the total transition.

Proof of Concept

Project objective: Evaluation -- Complete a full development life cycle to demonstrate the techniques and tools used in Business-Centric Object-Oriented and Component development, and to evaluate the approach for the client's organization.
Scope: A single workflow or small subset of a larger problem or application. Not to be deployed.
Duration: 2-4 weeks.

Pathfinder

Project objective: Knowledge transfer and validation -- Learn and validate the new techniques, processes and tools.
Scope: A complete, but small, business process or application not considered mission critical. To be deployed.
Duration: 2-3 months.

Pilot

Project objective: Reinforcement -- Apply the new techniques and tools to a more complex problem, but in a controlled environment where budget and scope are not the primary drivers.
Scope: A complete, medium-sized and moderately complex application. To be deployed.
Duration: 3-6 months.

Outsourced Application Development

Austin Software Foundry also conducts outsourced application and component development. Since the mid-1990s, ASF has used a web-based, collaborative approach to keep clients informed of the project's progress, to share information, and to track project milestones, deliverables and issues. ASF clients say this approach works well in daily communications between the technology staff and managers. It's also an excellent vehicle for communicating project progress with end-users.

Mentoring

If you have the resources but just want guidance and mentoring, ASF team leaders can provide that, too. Austin Software Foundry can help you meet your project requirements, whether they are oriented around knowledge transfer or simply getting the project done on time and within budget. Austin Software Foundry's educated and experienced managing consultants are skilled in ASF's processes and use them extensively on the projects they manage.

If you're interested in finding out more about ASF's approach and its services, please contact us.