1. Feasibility study
2. Specifications
3. Cost effectiveness analysis
4. Integration into the IT environment
5. Requirements
6. Concept for an internal control system (ICS)
7. System architecture
8. Tests (test plan and documentation)
9. Acceptance by the user
10. Final assessment
The recommendations explicitly insist that this list also applies to "new so-called 'agile' development methods".
For our Perl project at Geneva courts of law, this means that we must produce such documents to be ready for occasional auditors. The problem is, that the Hermes method was mainly inspired by good old waterfall development methods on mainframe computers, and some of the documents listed above just do not make much sense in our context; so instead of helping to better structure and organize the project, they just represent an additional burden.
For example, some parts of the application start in an exploratory way, without formal specifications, and are progressively shaped into working functionalities; tests are not planned in a document, but written in a galaxy of test files; etc.
I guess that the pressure for formal deliverables in project management is probably stronger in government than in private companies, but nevertheless people doing big Perl projects in any context probably also have at least some of such constraints. Any testimonies on that ?
From a business textbook:
ReplyDeleteIt's important to have clear goals, running a business or writing software. It is very difficult to plan, because you can't see the future, but you need to be very clear about your goals. If you are very clear about WHAT you want to do, it is easy to decide HOW to do it.
And:
Writing down business plans is hard work, but if you think about it a lot, it will help you be clear about what your business is doing. The plan you have written down can also be shown to many different people who want to see your business plan. The hard work writing down the business plan should not be regarded as a waste of time. It helps you decide what your goals are.