Software projects can derail in many ways. You can avoid making many classic mistakes if you study the many books and articles available on software engineering and project management, as well as the lessons your own teams have learned on previous projects. Sure, everyone’s very busy when you’re launching a new project, and taking the […]
Requirements will change and grow over the course of any software project. This is a natural aspect of software development. In fact, if a project doesn’t experience some requirements evolution, the team likely is ignoring reality and risks releasing an irrelevant product. The prudent project manager anticipates and plans to accommodate some requirements growth. Scope […]
In part 1 of this three-part series, adapted from my book More about Software Requirements, I described the importance of documenting the scope of each software development project or iteration. The context diagram and the use case diagram are two useful techniques for representing scope. This article describes two other methods for documenting scope: feature […]
Perhaps you’ve seen a sign at a car repair shop that asked, “What do you want: good, fast, or cheap? Pick two.” While humorous, the sign is also wise: it acknowledges the reality of tradeoffs. You generally cannot optimize every desired outcome of a given situation. People often apply this so-called “iron triangle” or “triple […]
In the first article in this series I described five dimensions of a software project: features, quality, schedule, staff, and cost. Each of these dimensions can be a project constraint, a driver, or a degree of freedom. A way to classify each dimension into one of the three categories is to think of the amount […]
On July 12th we celebrated our sixth birthday! A big thank you to everyone in the Portland community who joined us in this celebration. We had a great time and were happy to mark this milestone with so many members of the Portland startup and tech community. Also a shout-out to our awesome vendors MyBartender, […]
The need for performing impact analysis is obvious for major enhancements. However, unexpected complications can work below the surface of even minor change requests. A consulting client of mine once had to change the text of a single error message in its product. What could be simpler? The product was available in both English and […]
Automated tools can help your change control process operate more efficiently. Many teams use commercial problem- or issue-tracking tools to collect, store, and manage requirements changes. A list of recently submitted change proposals generated from the tool can serve as the agenda for a change control board meeting. Problem-tracking tools can also report on the […]
Whether you like it or not, requests to modify the requirements are going to come your way on a software project. To keep the inevitable changes from throwing your project into chaos, someone has to make the decisions about which changes to accept and which to reject. The industry-standard term for these decision makers is […]
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