Introductory
DISCUSSION TOPICS

#1
Broad Business Context

Please describe the nature of your business. What products or services do you sell, to what type of clients, and any other information you feel is important in the content of the software project you have in mind. Is this your first business or are you a serial entrepreneur?

#2
Define
Success

Please describe what you would consider as a successful outcome of this project and how you would measure success. Please discuss your timeline and any critical milestones that must be met.

#3
Sizing

Describe your scalability expectations and how you would like them to be measured. For example: How many users will your system have? How many hours per day will the typical user interact with your system? How many transactions and/or documents do you think your system will generate per month?

#4
Where's
the
Money?

Will this system process customer payments? If so – are these going to be B2B, B2C, C2C, cryptocurrency or some combination thereof? Describe any expected integration with banking, financial network, card issuer, microtransaction or similar online payment processing systems.

#5
Privacy & Security
Compliance

What level of privacy and security of information do you require? HIPAA? DPRG? For a list of compliance programs look here: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/programs/; If they exist, please share your existing privacy statement, software license agreements, and terms of use.

#6

Reach &

Multitenancy

Is your system intended to be multi-tenant? In other words, will you offer other companies accounts on your system, to run their own corporate accounts on your system – similar to a salesforce.com, maichimp, sendgrid, or Quickbooks online? Is your system require localization and internationalization, and if so to which languages and regions?

#7
Reliability

Please describe the software performance, availability, and business continuity expectations you have for this software system and how they will be measured.

#8
Information
Output &
Management

Please describe the reporting/analytics capabilities you want/believe you will need.

#9
Technology
Preferences

Please list any technologies you feel must be used in implementing your system. Do you think you need an on-premises, cloud-based, multi-cloud or hybrid deployment?

#10
Mobile
Tech
Approach

If you need mobile applications, do you expect native implementations or do you prefer a cross-platform toolchain - React Native, Xamarin, etc.

Are your mobile apps going to be publicly available or with enterprise-only distribution?

#11
Commitment

Are you able to spend at least one hour a day with your development team in a scrum / stand-up meeting, preferably first thing in the morning?

#12
TCO

What is the ratio of development to ongoing/operational/sustaining cost you expect? What is the expectation you have about the ratio of developers to QA testers on your project?

#13

Technology Background

What level of software technical understanding, training, and experience do you personally have? For example, which of these products/buzzwords/concepts are familiar: geofencing, IIS, DID, IHE Profile, scheme, rustup, introspection, natural key, compound index, Deno, Looker, decorator, d3.js, multiple inheritance, Nvidia A100, masscan, Vertica, DEK/KEK, Power BI, tensor flow, lambda, map/reduce, docker, kubernetis, GitFlow, RDF, inference, Xamarin, Redis, CICS?