Our Methodology: The CADD Process

250+Years Combined IT Experience

100%Customer Satisfaction

70%Lower Cost Than Other Firms

Why We Built A Process Instead Of Just Hiring Good People

Most technology firms will tell you they hire smart, experienced people, and XOR Services is no exception — our team carries more than 250 years of combined IT experience across infrastructure, networking, application development, and business process reengineering. But talented people working without a shared, disciplined process are still guessing at what "done" means, and that guess is where most IT and software projects actually go wrong.

It rarely fails because of bad technology. It fails because nobody wrote down, in enough detail, what the customer actually needed — or because a design got built without anyone outside the vendor's team ever reviewing it — or because "testing" meant the vendor checking their own work instead of validating it against criteria the customer had agreed to in advance. By the time anyone notices, the project is over budget, past deadline, and doesn't match what was actually needed.

CADD — Collect, Analyze, Design, Deliver — is our answer to that problem. It is the same four-phase framework behind every engagement we run, regardless of whether it's a custom application, a managed IT contract, a structured cabling install, a support desk rollout, or a hosting migration. The service changes; the process doesn't. Here's what each phase actually involves.

Collect

Before anything is designed, priced, or scheduled, we sit down with the people who will actually use or be affected by the outcome — not just the person who signs the contract — and gather requirements in detail. For an application, that means mapping every workflow the software needs to support. For managed IT, it means a full inventory of your environment: every system, endpoint, and vendor relationship. For structured cabling, it means walking every physical space and documenting code, capacity, and coverage needs before a single cable run is drawn. This phase is deliberately unglamorous and deliberately unhurried, because the requirements we miss here are the ones that show up as expensive surprises later.

Analyze

Raw requirements are rarely consistent or complete on their own — different stakeholders want different things, some requirements conflict, and some things everyone assumes are "obvious" never actually get said out loud. In the Analyze phase, we reconcile what we've collected into a single, coherent picture: a defined scope, clear success criteria, and — critically — a realistic understanding of cost and timeline before any design work starts. This is also where we flag trade-offs back to you directly, rather than making assumptions on your behalf and hoping we guessed right.

Design

Only once requirements are collected and analyzed do we produce an actual design — an application architecture and interface design, a managed services plan with defined SLAs, a cabling and access-point layout, a hosting architecture, whatever the engagement calls for. You review it. You ask questions. You request changes if it's not right. Nothing moves to build, procurement, or installation until you've signed off on that design in writing. A design nobody agreed to is just a guess, and we don't build against guesses.

Deliver

Delivery is where the work actually gets built, installed, migrated, or turned on — and it's also where we test against the success criteria defined all the way back in the Analyze phase, not against criteria we invent for ourselves after the fact. For an application, that's structured user acceptance testing. For structured cabling, that's certifying every run and validating every access point. For managed IT and support, that's validating live performance against the response-time and uptime targets in your signed plan. Delivery ends when what we built matches what you signed off on — not before.

Why It Works

What This Process Actually Buys You

Integrity

We deliver what the customer wanted, in the timeframe they expected. No surprises at hand-off.

Accuracy

We gather exactly the right amount of information up front to produce an accurate, customer-approved design.

Cost-Effectiveness

Our lean, fixed-cost model delivers the same result for as much as 70% less than other consulting firms.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "signed off" actually mean in your process?

It means a specific artifact — a requirements document after Collect & Analyze, a design mockup or technical spec after Design — that your team reviews and formally approves in writing before we move to the next phase. It is not a verbal go-ahead in a meeting; it is something both sides can point back to if a question comes up later.

What if our requirements change partway through the project?

They usually do, at least a little, and that is fine — the Collect and Analyze phase exists specifically to surface as much of that change as possible before design work starts. If something material changes after a design is signed off, we document the change and its impact on cost and timeline before proceeding, rather than absorbing it silently and letting scope drift.

How long does the Collect & Analyze phase take?

It depends on the size and complexity of the engagement — anywhere from a few days for a focused IT support rollout to a few weeks for a multi-location structured cabling assessment or a custom application with several stakeholder groups. We would rather spend an extra week here than discover a missed requirement halfway through delivery.

What happens if I don't like the design once I see it?

That is exactly what the Design Approval phase is for. Nothing gets built against a design you have not approved, so if it does not match what you had in mind, we revise it until it does — before any development, procurement, or installation work begins. That is the entire point of asking for sign-off before delivery instead of after.

See It In Action