What Should You Expect From A Software Audit

At Costa Blanca Geeks, we approach each client’s needs with a tailored strategy, carefully selecting solutions that fit perfectly. Our approach is both refined and effective, ensuring optimal outcomes.

During this initial phase, we identify the most critical aspects of your product and wrap these insights into a top-tier architectural and technical plan. We are fully aware of the usual constraints—budget and time—and thus, we strive to strike a delicate balance. This balance is not merely about technical excellence; it’s about crafting solutions that are feasible and sustainable over the long haul.

This is where our tech audit shines. It provides product owners with a clear understanding of where this balance lies at each stage of product development, setting the stage for informed decisions and strategic planning.

The process begins with an initial call, offering a high-level overview that not only fosters a mutual understanding of the business but also captures the stakeholders’ perspectives on the application. Following this, we dig into the existing documentation, UI design mockups, and codebase.

Moreover, we conduct thorough research into your business domain to grasp the nuances of your industry. This deeper understanding allows us to tailor our solutions more precisely to your specific business needs.

This phase is where creativity meets strategy. We start by translating the refined requirements into a high-level architectural blueprint. This involves a dynamic, iterative process, continually refining the architecture to enhance the system’s critical components.

Our team thrives on collaboration and debate, using whiteboards and iPads to sketch out ideas and challenge each other to unearth the best solutions. This brainstorming is punctuated by ongoing discussions with you, ensuring that our plans align with your vision and requirements.

Ultimately, we document the entire system in detailed schemes. This documentation then serves as a foundation for rigorous testing of the proposed solutions, critically assessing their resilience under anticipated loads and other specific conditions.

We also consider practical constraints such as budget and deadlines, iterating on the design until we achieve an optimal balance of performance, cost, and timeliness.

This phase embodies the essence of engineering creativity—solving complex problems within constrained environments, utilizing a blend of expertise and experience. It’s genuinely magical. We love it.

Following the creative high of architectural design, our focus shifts to implementation specifics. Initially, we decide which architectural frameworks will be employed throughout the design.

Our approach is technology-agnostic, meaning we don’t pledge allegiance to any specific language or framework; instead, we choose the best tool for each task based on the unique requirements of the project.

This flexible approach allows us to optimize each component of the system effectively. For instance, in one memorable project, we ventured into using Go—a language none of us had prior experience with—purely to assess potential performance gains for a specific client need. This experiment not only broadened our technical repertoire but also provided the client with a tangible improvement in performance.

During this phase, we focus on integrating CI/CD pipelines, which often utilize a similar stack across various projects. However, we meticulously assess all options to select the fastest and most secure solutions. A critical consideration at this stage is the budget, particularly how cloud hosting costs can impact the application’s future. Drawing on our own experiences, we ensure this aspect is never overlooked, aiming to optimize costs without compromising on security or functionality.

Leveraging our extensive experience and mindful of potential pitfalls, we decompose the application design into stages and estimate each one. These estimates aid in budgeting, adjusting feature sets for specific releases, and more. 

It’s essential to understand that while estimates are crucial, they are inherently imprecise. Echoing Steve McConnell in “Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art,” the primary purpose of estimation is not to predict exact outcomes but to ensure that project targets are feasible and guide the project effectively.

Similarly, Steven Thomas in “It’s a Delivery Thing” emphasizes the importance of accuracy over precision in estimates. An estimate like “roughly 2 weeks” might be more useful than “4.75 days,” which, though precise, may not accurately reflect the needed time.

Our approach aligns with these philosophies. We aim not to provide exact dates or budgets but rather to offer a realistic and actionable direction for the project.

When dealing with existing projects, our strategy is not to discard what has already been built. Instead, we conduct a thorough review of both the architecture and the codebase quality. Our primary aim here isn’t to assign blame but to determine whether the existing code is reusable and maintainable. 

After evaluating the code, we compile a prioritized list of improvements. These enhancements are categorized into technical debt and integrated into the active roadmap based on their impact on the product’s current quality. While we appreciate code that is stylistically consistent, we recognize the practicality of deferring certain refinements. Polishing or rewriting can wait until such a time as the project can afford these changes without risk.

 At Costa Blanca Geeks (CBG), we recognize the challenges of finding a trustworthy and highly skilled partner, especially under the constraints of tight budgets and overburdened founders. To address this, we’re pleased to offer a complimentary version of our tech audit service. This condensed audit focuses on:

•  Initial Consultations: Through calls, we aim to understand your product more deeply.
• High-Level Code Review: We provide a summary review of your existing codebase.
• Architectural Overview: Drafting preliminary architecture schemas that outline potential improvements.
• Development Roadmap: Suggesting a phased approach to implement the recommended architectural changes.
• Rough Estimations: Offering preliminary estimates of time and resources needed.
• Executive Summary: Summarizing our findings and recommendations.

   This service is designed to give you a snapshot of how we can enhance your project, providing valuable insights without any initial investment.