70Buyer guides

Guides for planning a software project

Practical guides for the decisions that come before a project starts. Choosing a partner, writing a brief, planning a first version and judging proposals. Each one includes a checklist or a template you can use straight away.

  1. 01Website projects10
  2. 02Mobile app projects10
  3. 03Custom software projects9
  4. 04AI projects15
  5. 05Ecommerce projects10
  6. 06Design and UX projects5
  7. 073D and configurator projects5
  8. 08Planning and procurement6
0110 guides

Website projects

Choosing a company, writing the brief, planning a redesign, a move or a second language, and looking after the site once it is live.

Guide8 minute read

How to Choose a Website Development Company

Criteria, first-call questions, a proposal scorecard and a pre-signing checklist.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

How to Write a Website Project Brief

What to include, goals a company can design for, a copyable template and a worked example.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Website Redesign Planning Checklist

Five stages, from the audit to launch day, with a redirect map example and the mistakes that cost traffic.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

How to Migrate a Website Without Losing Important URLs

Inventory, mapping, redirects and checks for a website move that keeps its traffic.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning an Arabic and English Website

Structure, right-to-left layout, Arabic type, content and search settings for a two-language site.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning a Bilingual English and French Website

Which French, how to structure it, and the details of text, formats and upkeep that get missed.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Corporate Website Features That Support B2B Enquiries

What business buyers need from your site before they contact you, and what gets in their way.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

How to Connect a Website to Your CRM

What to capture, three ways to connect, and the checks that stop leads going missing.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Choosing a CMS for a Business Website

Start from your editors and your content, then compare the kinds of system and test one.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Website Maintenance Responsibilities After Launch

Who keeps the site running, updated, backed up and current once the launch is over.Read the guide
0210 guides

Mobile app projects

Choosing an app company, writing requirements, sizing a first version, and handling accounts, offline work, notifications and a redesign.

Guide7 minute read

How to Choose a Mobile App Development Company

The evidence to ask for, how the platform choice should be made, and the after-launch questions most buyers forget.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

How to Write a Mobile App Requirements Document

The sections to include, requirements written as testable tasks, the mobile details most documents miss and a template.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Planning a Mobile App MVP

Find the riskiest assumption, cut the feature list, and decide what success means before you build.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Mobile App Development Stages and Deliverables

What happens at each stage of an app project, what you receive and what you are asked to decide.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

What to Ask Before Taking Over an Existing App

Accounts, keys, code, backend, data and costs: what to confirm before an inherited app is yours to run.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Who Should Own App Store Accounts and Source Code

Which accounts, keys and code your business should hold, and how to arrange it from day one.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning Offline Mobile App Workflows

What to support without a signal, how changes sync, and how conflicts and failures are handled.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Connecting a Mobile App to Existing Business Systems

The layer between the app and your ERP or CRM, and the questions to answer for each system.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning Push Notifications and Customer Permissions

What to send, when to ask for permission, and how to keep customers from switching you off.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

How to Plan a Mobile App Redesign

Evidence first, then depth, then a staged release that existing users can live with.Read the guide
039 guides

Custom software projects

Choosing a partner, writing requirements for a CRM, an ERP or a portal, moving data, and modernizing or rescuing what you already have.

Guide8 minute read

How to Choose a Custom Software Development Partner

When custom is the right route, engagement models compared, eight criteria to evaluate and a contract checklist.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Software Requirements Document Template and Examples

A template to copy, with examples of testable functional and quality requirements and a review checklist.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

How to Replace Business Spreadsheets With Software

Signs a spreadsheet has become a system, how to choose its replacement, and how to move the data safely.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning a Legacy Software Modernization Project

Assess the old system, pick a route, replace it in stages and keep the business running meanwhile.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Custom CRM Requirements Checklist

What to write down before a custom CRM is designed: people, records, process, reports and data.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Custom ERP Discovery Questions

The questions that turn the idea of an ERP into a first module that can be scoped and estimated.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Client Portal Features and Requirements

Choose features by the job the portal does, then define access, back-office links and adoption.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

How to Plan Data Migration and Reconciliation

Decide what moves, clean and map it, rehearse the move and prove that nothing was lost.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

How to Assess an Unfinished Software Project

Secure what exists, test what works, learn why it stalled, then choose to continue, salvage or stop.Read the guide
0415 guides

AI projects

Finding where AI fits, running a pilot, preparing documents, testing answers, keeping people in control and looking after a live system.

Guide6 minute read

How to Identify Business Workflows Suitable for AI

List candidate workflows, score them on five criteria, and choose how much the AI should do alone.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

How to Choose an AI Development Company

How to tell real capability from a demo, the questions that expose it, and what to settle before you sign.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

Planning an AI Pilot With Measurable Success Criteria

Scope the pilot, record the baseline, set pass marks before you start and decide in advance what each result means.Read the guide
Guide7 minute read

RAG Implementation Checklist for Business Teams

Content, permissions, evaluation, rollout and upkeep for answers drawn from your own documents.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

How to Connect AI to Your CRM and ERP

What AI can usefully do with your records, how it reaches them, and how to keep control of changes.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Preparing Company Documents for a Knowledge Assistant

Inventory, owners, versions, structure and access: the document work that decides answer quality.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Evaluating AI Answers Before Production

A test set, clear criteria, consistent scoring and a bar to clear before real users see answers.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

AI Workflow Approval and Human Review Design

Where a person must approve, what they need to see, and how to keep review from becoming a formality.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Arabic and English AI Assistant Requirements

Dialects, mixed-language messages, content in two languages, right-to-left interface and testing.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

AI Customer Support Implementation Checklist

Which requests to cover, what the AI answers from, how it hands over, and how to roll it out.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning an AI Voice Agent With Human Handoff

Which calls to automate, how the conversation should behave, and how a caller reaches a person.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

AI Document Processing Requirements and Exceptions

What to specify so that invoices, forms and contracts are read correctly, and exceptions are caught.Read the guide
Guide9 minute read

AI Agent Access Permissions and Audit Trails

What an agent may reach and do, how risky actions are approved, and what the record must show.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

AI Prototype Production Readiness Checklist

The work between a convincing demo and a system real users can depend on, as a checklist.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

AI Usage Monitoring and Ongoing Support

What to watch after launch, who watches it, and how to handle model and content changes.Read the guide
0510 guides

Ecommerce projects

Requirements, product data, pricing, checkout, ERP links, several branches, a move to a new platform and the checks before launch.

Guide7 minute read

How to Connect Ecommerce to ERP and Inventory

Who owns each record, how stock stays right, and what happens when the sync fails.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

B2B Ecommerce Requirements Checklist

Company accounts, agreed prices, fast reordering, credit terms and ERP links, as a checklist.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning an Ecommerce Replatforming Project

Why you are moving, what the current store really does, what data moves and how to switch safely.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Ecommerce Mobile App Requirements Checklist

Whether an app is justified, what it shares with the store, what only an app can do, and store rules.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning Account Based B2B Pricing and Catalogs

The kinds of pricing rule, which one wins, where the price is calculated and who sees which products.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

How to Plan Ecommerce Checkout Improvements

Measure each step, find out why shoppers leave, fix the largest causes first and test the result.Read the guide
Guide9 minute read

Preparing Product Data for a New Ecommerce Store

Structure, identifiers, attributes, images and ownership: the data work behind a store that sells.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning a Headless Ecommerce Project

When headless pays, what you take on, the parts to choose and the decisions that set the cost.Read the guide
Guide8 minute read

Planning Ecommerce Orders Across Multiple Branches

Which stock is sellable online, which branch fulfils each order, and what happens when it cannot.Read the guide
Guide9 minute read

Ecommerce Launch Acceptance Checklist

The tests and sign-offs that should stand between a finished build and a store open to customers.Read the guide
09After the guide

Ready to talk about your project

The guides are written so that you can use them with any company. If you would like our view on your plan, these are the three ways to start.

Next step

Send us your project brief

A page of notes is enough. We read it, tell you what we would ask, change or cut, and suggest a sensible first step. The scoping conversation is free.

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