Archer �

Time And Material

With the Time&Material model, you pay a monthly rate for the team's work.
Benefits:
- immediate needs are met by designing product's features on the fly
- you don’t pay for risks that don’t occur
Minuses:
- there will be changes; you get only a rough estimation and final cost range
- financial risks are shared between the supplier and client

Fixed Price

A Fixed Price business model suits projects with a fixed budget. Benefit – from the very start you know the final cost. No changes. Minuses: - the cost will cover all possible risks to ensure deadline adherence - all the requirements are to be distinctly specified at the start

Mixed Model

The mixed business model comes in several variations:
1. “FP-to-T&M”. The software is developed within the FP model, while support is carried out through T&M.
Benefit: you know the full price of the development at the very start and support lasts exactly as long as you need it.
2. “Double estimate”. First estimate (low-end/high-end) is done at the start and followed by a final estimate for the project.
Benefit: this is an FP model perfectly tuned for projects lasting longer than 6 months since it is difficult to estimate long periods of time. We make a final and exact estimate after a certain period of time.
3. “Multi-FP”: a big project is divided into several iterations, each estimated separately.
Benefit: avoid the risks of rough estimation for the big project; estimating every iteration separately makes each estimation more precise, which results in a lower budget.

We get great results by smartly mixing a flexible approach with well-organized methods of planning, requirements, risks, quality management, and other disciplines from RUP. The Archer Process is based on a great background and experience in many fields and has been implemented in over 350 projects.
The relevant methodology for a specific project is negotiated at the start. The project manager assigns all project needs to the required specialists including the system analyst, QA engineer, developers, architect and technical writer. You can choose the most suitable way of communication and level of involvement during the project.
At the end, you get a finished product, source code, and a number of documents that were created and updated during the project’s life cycle. 30 to 90 days of free post-development support is available.

“Archer Software” follows the CMMI process improvement approach. We’ve already covered level 3 of CMMI and have created our own processes inside the company which define our work on separate projects as well as our whole working style. Moreover, several major measures were taken to control and constantly enhance these processes: inside institutions were established and the optimization of processes was started (and will never end).
“Archer Software” is up to cover CMMI’s maturity level 4, which makes our products able to be measured by the highest standards.

The diagram above represents Archer Software's CMMI issue state.
In 2007 Archer began self-assessment using CMMI model to learn that nearly half of company's procedures correspond to Maturity Level 2 while others span through levels 0-1. Initial state of the company is represented by pale-red columns on the diagram.
By now (2011) Archer Software covers CMMI Maturity Level 3 with the most important processes reaching level 4. Blue columns show company's current state. Archer Software's target profile is represented by gradient white-red columns on the diagram and strives for the Level 5 of key procedures and processes.

We've created "Producer" - our own ERP system which improves the client's ability to control and track the work on their projects. "Producer" covers all the processes and makes control easier than ever, meeting every possible management need in the project flow.
We also use a number of tools to support and automate our development process: SVN, issue tracker, autobuilds server, code review tools (FishEye and Collaborator), requirements management tools (e.g. Caliber), documents repository, Wiki, VPN etc.