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Pragmatic Agile
Development - The PAD Roadmap
In March, our newsletter explored the differences
between Agile and the Waterfall methodology for software development. In
April, our newsletter introduced a blended approach to Agile development called
Pragmatic Agile Development (PAD), and explained that PAD is designed to
encompass all of the measurement and oversight of the Waterfall methodology
(similar to approaches used by PMI / CMMI) with the nimbleness of Agile development, providing a
methodology that yields the best of both worlds.
This month, we discuss the PAD Roadmap, the bible for PAD. Below are the prior newsletters published on this topic:
March newsletter:
Exploring Agile Development
April newsletter:
Pragmatic Agile Development - The Lifecycle Phases
The PAD Roadmap
The PAD Road Map is the bible for your release. It is the central
communication tool as you progress through the release. Below are the
sections defined in the PAD Road Map:
- Schedule - Since PAD uses a locked duration
for each phase of the release, a documented schedule is imperative. This section of the PAD
Road Map has a visual calendar that shows when each phase of PAD begins and
ends. It also identifies employee vacations and holidays so that
everyone is aware of when people will have time off.
- Requirements - This section of the PAD Road
Map identifies all the requirements you wish to deliver in the release.
Each requirement is listed in priority order. Each week, your
team will work on only the high priority items and will meet to discuss if
any new requirements need to enter into the release. During the weekly
requirements review, requirements that have been fully coded will be staged
for quality assurance and other non-high priority requirements will be reprioritized to
enter the queue for work (work is done only on high priority requirements,
this allows your team to stay focused and allows new requirements to enter
the release at anytime during the coding phase).
- Customer Facing Defects - This section of
the PAD Road Map identifies any customer facing defects that are being fixed
in this release. If you are developing a new product (no prior
releases), this section is skipped. Having all customer facing defects
exposed in the PAD Road Map draws attention to them by the development team
and ensures that once the new release is in production your support team has
all the details of each customer allowing them to easily
contact the customer to communicate the resolution of each fix.
- Features - This section of the PAD Road Map
identifies the marketable features that will be introduced with the release
(you could have several requirements that make up one feature). Having
this in the PAD Road Map ensures that all marketing materials explain the
features with the same nomenclature. These descriptions are used for help guides,
documentation, and marketing materials.
- Milestones - This section of the PAD Road
Map identifies all of the critical activities and measurements that are
collected during the PAD process. It identifies meetings that need to
occur, statistics that show if the release is tracking towards plan, and
deliverables for each milestone.
- Percentage Complete Definitions - This
section of the PAD Road Map identifies what constitutes a specific
percentage complete. Many people will mark percentage complete as 50%
when they begin work, 80% as they progress, and 99% until finally
complete. This is very subjective and not very meaningful. An
alternative way to determining percentage complete is to objectively define
what each level of percentage complete means. For example, here is an
example for the coding phase:
»
0% - Not started
»
15% - Requirement(s) reviewed and understood
»
25% - Data objects completed
»
50% - Business objects completed
»
75% - User Interface and other objects
completed
»
80% - Code complete/unit testing completed
» 95%
- Code complete/code cleanup/refactoring
»
100% - Code complete/ready for QA
- Server Configurations - This section of the
PAD Road Map identifies the QA, User Acceptance and Production server
configurations.
- Success Criteria and Reward - This section
of the PAD Road Map identifies measurable success criteria and the reward
for a successful PAD Release. It is important for everyone on the team
to know what constitutes a successful release. It could be a certain
amount of billable work, a release to production with no severity 1 or 2
defects, a project that is delivered on time and on budget, etc.
Likewise, it is important to reward those who contributed to the success of
the project. By identifying the reward up front, it encourages team
cohesiveness, as everyone invests in delivering a success project.
Want to review a template PAD Road Map? Click here:
PAD Road Map Template
Learning More About PAD
Our upcoming newsletters will drill into the details of utilizing
PAD to consistently manage your software lifecycle. Next month, we will
discuss PAD Best Practices.
If you wish to learn more about PAD, here are some
helpful links:
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