Our Process

The Mammoth Method: how we consistently deliver on time and on budget.

strategy

This step, arguably the most important, is often overlooked in the development of any online presence. Every website or any sort of online venture requires a set of goals. Just as any marketing, product development or operational plan requires a strategy, so too does your presence online.

We consider three key steps when assisting you in developing an online strategy:

• The Future - We assist you in developing a well-defined statement of where you wish to be.
• The Now - We work with you to assess where you are now with your online presence.
• The Plan - We help you develop a simple and brief implementation plan to get from the “now” to the “future”.

Like any successful methodology, our method for developing your strategy can vary depending on the size of your organisation and how ambitious your online goals are. Therefore this step can consist of a series of major workshops across numerous business units, or a simple chat over a coffee to talk about what you want to achieve online with your small business.

Similiarly, the output from this step could be a full online strategy recommendation document, or a collection of dot points according to your stated requirements.

The important aspect of this process is not the thickness of the document at the end, but that your objectives for getting online, or improving your online presence are clear, not only for us, but for you and your organisation as well.

Before we go ahead to the next phase, we ask you to review the objectives set out as part of your strategy, as this feeds into the design of the solution.

design

From the implementation plan provided from phase 1, we consider a number of different factors in producing a design. 

• Technology
  • What sorts of technologies can we use to deliver these objectives?
  • Which ones are the most effective?
• Information
  • How will the information be managed?
  • Where will it come from?
  • What tools or processes will help with this?
• Skills
  • Do we have the right people, both at Mammoth and in your organisation that can use the tools and technology to effectively meet your online objectives?
  • How will this affect your ability to maintain and grow your online presence?
• Users / Customers
  • Who are your users and or customers?
  • Is there a common denominator we should take into account for as part of the design?
• Risks
  • We consider the risks not only to the development of your online solution, but to the ongoing management of your information online.
• Costs
  • Taking all of the above into consideration, we estimate the costs involved in meeting your objectives.

Once we have these questions answered to both our satisfaction, we proceed to design your solution by breaking it down into two main tasks:

• Information Architecture (IA) - This can be as simple as a basic site map, to a fully considered data structure for your online store and its associated meta-data.
• Graphic Design / User Interface (UI) – This is the groovy creative aspect of the website that everyone loves. What colours, images and other visual elements to use to best represent your organisation online.

Then we test it.

We run you through the design, either by providing a prototype or through a design walkthrough. We consider our objectives from phase 1, and ensure we’re still on track. If not, we will rectify those things, and present it to you again.

Once we agree on the design, we get our developers and artists in to work their magic and create your online solution.

production

This step of the Mammoth Method is where we do all of the technical stuff, and create your online solution.

Before commencing work on the technical implementation, we select our team based on the technology and experience required. We have specialists across numerous technologies, and we ensure you have the right people for your particular job.

This is an interactive and iterative process, meaning that you’re kept informed every step of the way. Depending on the scale of the work, we break this into multiple sprints or iterations. We present our progress to you at the end of each iteration for your feedback, comparing it to the objectives and design work from previous phases to make sure we’re on track.

• Design - We review the design, select what we’re to deliver as part of this iteration and start coding.
• Code - Our developers do their thing.
• Test - We test each deliverable against the design.
• Review – We show our progress to you in a staging environment, and incorporate your feedback into the next iteration.

delivery

Once we have completed all of the iterations required to develop the solution, and once you’re happy with the completed product, we put your solution online! This can be through any hosting provider, or through our own hosting service, Mammoth VPS.

We have a dedicated operations team that managed literally hundreds of servers for our clients, and they bring the same level of professionalism and service whether you’re the local soccer team, or the largest ISP in the country.

maintenance

Once you’re website or online solution is up and running, that’s only the beginning of your journey. We can continue to be your partner through integrated maintenance plans for your online solution, with a dedicated team of people to provide technical and website management support for your solution.

evaluation

We work with you through your online journey to ensure you’re always getting the best out of your website or software. We provide a free evaluation on every solution we provide, because as the web changes constantly, so too does your online solution need to change in order to stay as relevant and effective as it can be.