Ok, you're booked. Now what?

So you've read the site, or talked to one of us, and you like the idea of having your own fasttrack review. You've applied for a review and we've found a date to suit. In order to get the best out of your time with us, there's a few things to consider before you turn up for one of our design review sessions.

1. Who to bring?

This may seem obvious, but there's a certain range of people we'd like to meet from your organisation if we're going to maximise the benefits of this session. Ideally, you'll bring along someone with a business or project management focus, who can tell us about the 'big picture' and will be involved in overseeing the project/product/application we're talking about.

We'd also like to meet the technical lead for the project, the one who's going to be saying what technologies, requirements and infrastructure are going to go where. Finally - last but not least, it's always good to have the developers who are going to be putting everything together in the room, with any specific questions or pitfalls they might see.

2. What to bring? (stuff)

Our reviews can vary wildly from the migration of, or addition to, a long-established product of significant size, to the initial 'blue sky' thinking about an r&d project. However, anything visual you can bring along, to help us get a clearer picture of what you're working with, and what you want to do, will always be helpful.

It's always useful to have a diagram, or specification, of any current systems you have in place, and then anything you have which is specific to what you're looking to do in the future (problems to solve, functionality to add, business needs to meet). As a general rule, it's always best to bring more than you think you'll need.

This being said, don't worry, we don't want any kind of sales pitch or slick technical demo - it's just that having some real 'stuff' that can be seen and touched often helps bring clarity to a discussion.

3. What to bring? (thoughts)

Again, this is going to vary on exactly what you're meeting us for - but it's good if you come prepared with a clear idea of what you'd like to get out of the session. Do you want to spend all the time learning about Microsoft technologies - or can you find out about that on the web?

It's best to come with specific problems, questions and ideas. Tell us what your business needs are and tell us why your sales guys are losing sleep at night. Tell us what technologies you're not sure about trying, and tell us what solutions you'd love to build, but don't know how.