Best Practices for Software Projects -
Design Signoffs
This year's newsletters will focus on best practices for Software
Development Projects. Each month will cover a different best practice
technique. This month focuses on improving project management with the use
of design signoffs.
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Best Practices for Software
Projects - Design Signoffs
Ever worked on a project where
the requirements were scribbled on a napkin and you were asked how quickly you
could get the project done? First time project managers sometimes fall
into this trap, and it is a recipe for disaster.
To consistently deliver
software solutions on-time and on-budget, you must follow a disciplined approach
to managing the project. The only way to adequately determine the project
timeline is to fully understand all deliverables of a project, to manage risk
with risk mitigation, and to obtain signoffs along the way so that you have
documented accountability.
Here is a simplified overview
of how a software project should be run to ensure on-time and on-budget
delivery. Notice that each phase requires sign-off from various project
members to ensure a quality release.
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Planning Phase - This is where you collect requirements from the
client and agree to the requirements. Upon completion of this phase,
your client should physically sign the Functional Specifications
document agreeing to the requirements of the project. Also at
the end of this phase, it is wise to perform risk assessment to budget time
for risks that may arise in the upcoming software lifecycle phases.
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Design Phase - Once you have a signed Functional Specifications
document, your technical team should provide a design for each requirement.
Designs should be done for coding, testing, customer support, and
documentation. The designs should be reviewed with team members to
ensure that the design fully meets the objectives of the requirements
document and each functional specification should be matched to the design
to ensure all items have been covered. Upon completion of the Design
Phase, your project manager and technical team should sign off on the
detailed design, your project manager and test team should sign off on the
master test plan, and your project manager and support team should signoff
on the design for support procedures and documentation. Once this is
done, the project manager can create a timeline based on the estimates from
the design process. The project manager can divide requirements into
"iterations" as to allow the team to more quickly deliver the project in
stages and to lessen the risk of the overall project.
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Iterative Code/Test Phase - Once coding and quality assurance
testing is complete, the testing team should develop documents that describe
the User Acceptance testing phase. This document should be reviewed
with the users and signed off by both the users and the testing team.
This sets the rules and procedures for User Acceptance testing and outlines
the requirements for a successful User Acceptance testing phase and the
criteria for moving the software to production.
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Production
Phase - Before moving the code to production, the Project
Manager, Quality Assurance and User Acceptance team should sign off on the
release, allowing it to be moved to production. That indicates that
the release is production ready.
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Post Mortem Phase - After a month of production, post mortem
meetings should be held to highlight the things that were done well and the
things that went wrong in the project. Upon completion of this phase,
the Project Manager, Development Lead, Test Lead and User Acceptance Lead
should sign off the Post Mortem documentation. This documentation aids
future teams, allowing them to learn from the things done well and learn to
avoid common mistakes.
The easiest way to begin delivering software on-time and
on-budget is to follow a disciplined approach to project management. Below
are some
helpful templates to aid you in this, notice that each document has a section
for signoffs, providing accountability every step of the way.
About the Author
Steve Miller is the President of Pragmatic Software (http://www.PragmaticSW.com). With over 20 years of experience, Steve
has extensive knowledge in project management, software architecture and test
design. Steve publishes a monthly newsletter for companies that design and
develop software. You can read other newsletters at
http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Newsletters.htm. Steve's email is
steve.miller@PragmaticSW.com.
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