Software Development
Work and collaborate closely with a team of experts, always adapting to your needs through our industry leading development process. Whether you are after an intelligently designed feature-rich web application, powerful desktop software, a mobile app or even a cross-platform solution, we have you covered. As a Crown Commercial Supplier we can also provide these services across all government sectors, supporting their digital transformation initiatives.
Desktop Applications
Harness the performance of locally installed software without being tied down to a single platform. Versatile, intelligent software with compatibility where you need it.
Web Applications
Accessing your application from anywhere on any device makes a web application the ultimate choice in flexibility. Designed and built to be responsive and mobile first, your application looks great on any screen and using the latest web standards means cross-browser compatibility is built in from the start. Combine with our highly competitive hosting options to launch your next SaaS (Software as a service) project.
Mobile Applications
Extend the versatility of a web or desktop application or harness the full power potential of standalone mobile apps. Demand for both consumer and business mobile applications is growing every day, so whether you want to get the most productivity from your staff or connect effortlessly with your customers, there has never been a better time to get started.
Flexible Resourcing
Getting your project on track doesn’t need to hurt your budget. With significant experience in handling both large scale and smaller projects – from isolating the real needs and requirements to putting together the team to deliver, we do it all within your budget.
Software Support
Our close involvement with your business throughout the development project means there is no better company prepared to provide ongoing support and end-user training for your new solution. What’s more, our commitment to TDD and clean code keeps support costs low and means that future development is hassle free and quick to deliver, allowing your business to react and adapt faster than ever.
Hosting and Hardware
Fully managed and backed up hosting in a UK based data centre or on-site server hardware built to specification Beyond just building your software solution we can help you get it into production. Thanks to our long history in IT support, Syntax IT Services can provide a truly end-to-end service.
Crown Commercial Services Supplier
Syntax IT Services are a Crown Commercial Services Supplier and are on the Digital Outcomes and Specialist framework agreement which supports the Government’s policy to centrally manage the procurement of common goods and services through an integrated commercial function at the heart of government.
The Digital Outcomes and Specialist framework can be used by organisations across the UK public sector including central government, local government, health, education, devolved administrations, emergency services, defence and not-for-profit organisations.
Digital Outcomes and Specialist framework is fully EU compliant and provides easy access to software development resources across a broad range of technologies to enable more agile delivery of Software projects across the whole of government, saving your organisation time and money.
We provide management information to help you manage your spend effectively and intelligently. We also supply management information to CCS enabling them to identify further savings opportunities for the public sector.
Flexible Resourcing
Your project is at a standstill. Not enough resource to manage the high demand or just a lack of specialist knowledge can be problematic.We can bridge that gap.
Immediate Access to Professionals
Verified technical resources in multiple technologies ready to work on your project today.
Manage Projects End to End
Our involvement scales to your needs; injecting key resource in the areas needed, taking on the project management role or building a whole team to deliver your project.
Hiring Staff isn’t Always the Right Answer
When flexibility is needed then often the timely process associated with hiring the right staff can be detrimental to the delivery of a key project, flexible resourcing is the answer, reduce risk and get your project delivered on time.
Knowledge Retention
Domain knowledge doesn’t have to leave your business at the end of a project, with flexible resourcing domain knowledge is retained, we commit to supporting our customers ongoing and when you need to flex-up again we are ready to hit the ground running.
Our Process
We start by understanding your business; what is most important to you and the way you operate is at the foundation of everything we do. From there on out, sharing in your vision is seamless and enables us to offer solutions throughout the project that are always in-line with your needs.
We Are Agile
Agile is an approach to project management that is widely utilized in software development. It appeals to the unpredictability of constructing software and has revolutionised software development teams by introducing incremental, iterative work sequences commonly known as sprints.
By splitting the project up into consistent sprints the entire project can be delivered in a way that begins to provide value immediately. Priorities change, features come and go or evolve in ways that can never be predicted but by using sprints we react to that change as it happens adjusting along the way to ensure the final product is exactly what you want.
We begin to understand the needs of your business, what you would like to achieve with the development project and what problems need to be solved. Through our conversations, workshops, mock-ups, prototypes and diagrams we work with you to outline a solution.
Next we start to break down the individual requirements and prioritise them based on risk, an estimate of effort, and the value they return. This way, we start delivering value immediately where it matters the most.
At the beginning of each sprint we analyse each requirement as part of a planning meeting and begin to design the technical solution. If there are multiple solutions, we discuss the options with you and agree and the best approach.
During the sprint, development gets under way and we turn the designs into working code. The features are built following our test-driven development process ensuring we meet your requirements. At the end of each sprint iteration, these new features are demonstrated.
New features are tested thoroughly and gain feedback from customers and stakeholders. Changes or additional features can surface from this testing and the power of an agile approach allows us to adapt to feedback, adjusting the plan for the future iterations.
Once approved, new functionality is deployed so that it can start delivering value immediately whilst the next sprint is prepared, the project continues to iterate and new features are developed in this way until the final product is completed.
Test Driven Development (TDD)
TDD is important to us because it really defines how we write software; customer focused, right at the heart of every line of code. Your requirements act as the acceptance criteria so when a test passes, it not only works but we know it works the way you want it to.
The rules of TDD are simple but to follow them strictly and implement it correctly requires great discipline; essentially you write the test before you write the code it is testing. It seems counter-intuitive but the difference in code quality speaks for itself. By integrating TDD into our process we are able to achieve the following;
When tests are not at the forefront of the development process you can never know for sure that everything is actually being tested. If it isn’t, how can you know that it all works and continues to work as you add more features? Manual testing, second-guessing and checking everything again and again takes time and even then there’s no certainty. With TDD every line is covered by a test so if the tests all pass, the software is working exactly how it should be. This certainty empowers developers to write quickly and in confidence.
Nothing causes more headaches, wasted time and ultimately higher costs than working with messy code. With ‘clean code’ every line has a clearly defined purpose so you can extend functionality or make changes to existing functionality quickly and safely in the knowledge that the chance of introducing ‘bugs’ is kept to a minimum.
When every part of the application is covered by a corresponding test, if something does break, it is immediately evident and the failing test will highlight exactly where the problem is. No need to spend hours searching through thousands of lines; no debugging means our developers can focus their efforts on delivering requirements that bring value to our customers.
Every piece of functionality is defined by a test; understand the test and you understand the code too. On-going support and future development becomes a breeze. With less time spent understanding what has already been written, developers can pick straight up from where they left off.
Technologies
You can always rely on us to know the right tools for your project. We see past the acronyms to a library of resources at our fingertips. Our extensive capabilities, strong knowledge of the latest and greatest industry standards and our close understanding of what you need makes us experts at our craft.