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See Also
Best Practices for Software Projects - Estimating.
More...
Beyond Broken Links. More...
Minimizing Software Defects via Inspections.
More...
Best Practices for Software Projects
- Software Measurements. More...
Test Methods. More...
Test Reviews. More...
Key QA Documents. More...
Improving the Quality process by
doing the
Metrics Calculation
Download
Zero-Defect Software Development. More...
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More Resources
Some templates that
you will find useful
during the development
of your software product.
More...
When is a test plan
to complicated
by Charles Shelby. More...
Test Development
Life Cycle. More...
Test Plan Outline. More...
The test specification should
explain "how" to implement
the test cases described in the test plan. More...
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To deliver software on-time and on-budget, successful
project managers understand that software development is complex, and that unexpected things will happen during
the project life cycle. There are 2 types of risks that may affect your project during it's duration:
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| Best Practices for Software Projects - Risk Management |
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· Risks you know about
- There are many risks that you know about, that you can mitigate. For example, let's assume that you have assembled
a team to work on the project and one of the stellar team members has already scheduled a 3 week vacation just
before testing is scheduled, which you agreed to allow. The successful project manager will identify this risk
and provide some contingency plans to control the risk.
· Risks you don't know about - There are also risks that you don't know about, so a general
risk assessment must be done to build time into your schedule for these types of risks. For example, your development
server may crash 2 weeks into development and it may take you 3 days to get it up and running again.
The key to managing risks is to build contingency plans for risk and to build enough time into your project schedule
to mitigate risks that you do not know about. Below are a list of the 5 most common scheduling risks in a software
development project:
1. Scope and feature creep - Here is an example: Let's say the client agrees to a requirement for a Logon page.
The requirement specifies that the client will enter their userid/password, it will be validated and will allow
entry upon successful validation. Simple enough. Then in a meeting just before coding is commencing, the client
says to your project manager "I was working with another system last week and they send the client a report
each day that shows how many people log in each day. Since you have that information already anyway, I'm sure it
will only take a couple of minutes to automate a report for me that does this." Although this sounds simple
to the client, it requires many different things to happen. First, the project manager has to amend the requirement
document. Then the programmer has understand the new requirement. The testing team must build test scenarios for
this. The documentation team must now include this report in the documentation. The user acceptance team must plan
to test this. So as you can see, a simple request can add days of additional project time, increasing risk.
2. Gold Plating - Similar to scope and feature creep, programmers can also incur risk by making the feature more
robust than is necessary. For example, the specification for the Logon page contained a screen shot that showed
very few graphics, it was just a simple logon process. However, the programmer decides that it would be really
cool to add a FLASH based movie on the page that fades in the names of all the programmers and a documentary on
security. This new movie (while cool in the programmer's eyes), takes 4 hours of additional work, put their follow-on
tasks are n jeopardy because they are now behind schedule.
3. Substandard Quality - The opposite of Gold Plating is substandard quality. In the gold plating example, the
programmer got behind schedule and desperately needed to catch up. To catch up, the programmer decided to quickly
code the next feature and not spend the time testing the feature as they should have. Once the feature went to
the testing team, a lot of bugs were found, causing the testing / fix cycle to extend far beyond what was originally
expected.
4. Unrealistic Project Schedules - Many new team members fall into this trap. Project members (project managers,
developers, testers, etc), all get pressure from customers and management to complete things in a certain time
frame, within a certain budget. When the timeframes are unrealistic based on the feature set dictated, some unseasoned
team members will bow to the pressure and create their estimates based on what they think their managers want to
hear, knowing that the estimates are not feasible. They would rather delay the pain until later, when the schedule
spirals out of control.
5. Poor Designs - Many developers and architects rush the design stage in favor of getting the design behind them
so the "real" work can begin. A solid design can save hundreds of programming hours. A design that is
reusable, allows changes to made quickly and lessens testing. So the design stage should not be rushed.
Calculating Risk
The key to successful risk management is to identify all risks you know about and build time in for risks you do
not know about. The mechanics of doing this is to simply list the risks, and figure out the loss (in hours) you
expect would happen if the risk occurs, and then list the probability of the risk happening. Then you can factor
that risk into your project schedule by multiplying the loss by the probability.
For example, let's assume that you have decided to use a new outsourcing company to do some of the coding for your
project. Since you have not worked with them before, you surmise that there is a 50% probability that you could
incur 40 hours of additional development because of the new resource. You would build 20 additional hours (40 hours
* 50% probability) into your project plan to mitigate the risk.
Manage Risks with Software Planner.
Using Online Tools
You can minimize project risk by using tools to help you track the entire software life cycle. There are many solutions
for aiding you in this process. For example, Software Planner (http://www.SoftwarePlanner.com) has features that allow you to track all phases of the
life cycle from start to finish.
Software Planner also has a unique feature called the List Manager, where you can define a list of information
to track. In this case, you can create a Risk Management list and track your risks online. To see how that works,
see this movie.
 Share your thoughts on Best Practices for Software Projects
- Risk Management in SQAtester
Group.
 E-mail to a Friend.
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Manage all phases of your software
development with
Software Planner
Software Planner is a project collaboration tool
that allows you to manage all phases of your software development. In the initial stages of the project, it allows
you to post functional specifications and post project related documents (like meeting minutes, client proposals,
etc.). As the project progresses, it allows you to post baseline documents (like detailed designs and project plans).
As development proceeds, it allows your project managers and developers to track project deliverables.
The developers can update the percentage complete for all items assigned to them. Once testing begins, it allows
your testers to create test cases and track software defects. Developers are automatically alerted, by email, as
defects are assigned to them. Team members are alerted as new documents are uploaded or re-uploaded (like project
plan updates, etc.). And each person has the ability to control the email alerts they wish to receive. Use the
discussion forums to communicate all issues with clients and project team members. Keep your appointments and to
do list on-line and updated at all times.
Try Software Planner FREE for 2 weeks.
|
| Books to Read |
|
________________________________________ |
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Quality Web Systems
This book provides a framework for ensuring that key Web system success criteria are addressed during the development
of a Web system. Detailed technical guidance is provided for all criteria, along with testing strategies that allow
for verification of a quality implementation. More...
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Automated Software Testing
Written for those with some background in software engineering, Automated Software Testing: Introduction, Management,
and Performance delivers a rigorous guide to the state of the art in managing automated testing in a text that
will benefit anyone who tests software for a living. More...
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