The process below is how we built and still run CR Cafe, and how we run client projects. It is deliberately simple: short cycles, early working software, and decisions written down where everyone can see them.
1. Discover
We start by understanding how your business works today — not how it is supposed to work. That means walkthroughs of the real workflow, including the spreadsheets, group chats and sticky notes that fill the gaps. Our guide on how to plan a custom software project lists what is useful to bring.
- Walkthroughs with the people who will use the software
- The problem written down, with what it costs today
- Users, roles and what each may see and change
- Integrations, data to import and any equipment involved
- A straight answer on whether custom software is the right call
2. Requirements and architecture
Discovery ends in a written scope for a first release: what it must do, what it won’t do yet, and the failure cases that matter. We then make the architectural decisions that are expensive to change later:
- The data model, and how multiple customers or locations are separated
- Roles and permissions, enforced on the server
- Which features must be real-time, and which must work offline
- How the software reaches users — web deploys, desktop installers, device firmware
- Where it is hosted and how releases are shipped
3. Design
Interface and data model are designed together, so the screens people use and the schema underneath stay in agreement. For business software we design for the hundredth use rather than the first impression: clear tables, fast forms, sensible defaults and keyboard access.
4. Develop
We build in short cycles and put something clickable in front of you early, so changes of direction are cheap. Every change goes through version control and a type-checked build; a type error fails the deploy rather than reaching users.
Quality assurance
We test against the real environment, not just a developer laptop. For CR Cafe that rule came from experience: a desktop runtime upgrade that looked perfect in development broke the kiosk on a real station. Anything that touches hardware or a customer’s session is now installed on one real machine and checked before it rolls out further.
5. Deploy
- Automated pipelines build and deploy on every push to the main branch
- Database changes ship as versioned migrations, applied on release
- Desktop apps update themselves, timed so they never interrupt a user
- Each release is announced to the team with its changelog
6. Monitor and support
Launch is the start of the relationship. We watch logs and the audit trail, fix what real use uncovers, keep dependencies and security patches current, and build the next features in the same short cycles. Software is a relationship, not a delivery.
What you can expect from us
- Straight answers on scope, timelines and what we are not the right team for
- Working software early, not a big reveal at the end
- Written decisions you can refer back to
- You own the code, the data and the infrastructure