Development

The 80-20 rule for Developers

The 80-20 Rule or most commonly known as “Pareto Principle” was first formulated by the famous Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1895. The principle was named after him and still holds good almost in all the aspects of life. Vilfredo Pareto found that 80% of Italy’s wealth was with 20% of...

Software Developers – Do you imagine, dream and innovate? Continuously?

If answer to the first question is No, start moving into the direction of converting it to Yes. Answer to second question also has to be yes. Let us see what is meant by Imagine, Dream and Innovate and how to adopt them at workplace. Imagination- The ability to create, and paint a mental picture...

If SaaS is acceptable, why not give birth to QaaS?

A software division in an IT company is considered to be a profit center whereas the Testing division is considered as cost center. A set of developers develop software, get it tested by a set of testers, sell it in the market and earn profits. The credits and benefits on success of the software...

An IT guy posted a question on LI… regarding software project development and testing…

On LinkedIn an IT projects guy posted a question about plus and minus of outsourcing software testing for his software project. After getting 12 replies from various experts he posted his intention behind this question. The intention was to outsource development and testing to two different vendors...

Software developer or bug developer

If a person who develops software is software developer, why not the same person developing bugs in the software be called bugs developer. How many developers ethically perform the unit testing after completing development of a unit? It could be - None, a few of them, some of them, most of them or...

Dear software developer – what is your mileage?

I have two sets of developers. Both bunches contain quite considerable number of developers. Let us call it first set of developers and second set of developers. Both sets have their own unique way of functioning and performing. First set of developers work randomly with no documentation, no...

Six indicators for a project manager – of their downfall (or failure) in project management

If you, as a project manager, are fond of thunderstorms, volcano eruptions, etc. it is ok howsoever you drive a project. Otherwise look below at six indicators mentioned below. Even if one of the reason prevails in your project’s lifecycle, manage it, get rid of it, immediately, before a small...

Seven Questions on ‘Average Cycle Time’ of your projects?

What is cycle time? Cycle time in terms of a software project is the time taken from its initiation to handover. Another measure in terms of commercials could be order to execution to recovery... A project lifecycle in other terms Do you measure it? You might be banking on your experience...

Two approaches in defining testing scope of an application

There is no end to an application. It always asks for a new feature, alter in functionality, addition/ change of business rule etc. With any change in the existing application running in a live environment, the change needs to be tested for all aspects of quality before putting it live. The...

Ten Mantras for a software developer

Lot of efforts can be saved in terms of time and money if we reach to a stage of ‘first time right’ in application development. It has been proven largely that no good application can be built and released without extensive testing. Testing is not developers’ ball game – this is also a well...

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

UAT or user acceptance testing comes as the last exercise in software testing lifecycle. It is probably the first phase or beginning of customer preparing to takeover the charge of the product. Actually this is a sort of test drive by a perspective buyer who has studied well about a car, has made...

Ten golden rules for Project Management Standards – evolution to adherence

1. Evolve, develop and freeze standards. 2. Keep a breathing space by not developing too rigid standards. 3. Live with open mind. Always be open for change in standards, if it is for improvement, and if it makes sense. 4. Let everyone involved in the projects have the same drink at the cocktail....

Six details about application you need to know before performing load testing

1. Purpose: The main purpose of the application for which it is built need to be defined. 2. Load Test goals: Identify what you want to achieve by load testing, what are your primary goals to go for load testing. Define all your goals. One example could be – login time for 100 concurrent users...

Five Technical Details to understand before performing Load Testing on a software product

1. Framework: What is the framework being used in the application? For example it may be .Net or J2EE or any other. 2. Servers: What all server services you are using to run/ use this application? What standard server applications are used for Presentation, Application and Database level? Some...

Four Environment Essentials to know before performing load testing

Which Server: Where is the load testing intended to be performed? Is it the test server, production server or staging server where load testing is to be performed? If it is being performed on Production Server, it is ok. Otherwise if it is to be performed on test or staging server, be careful that...

Five lessons my dance teacher gave me that can make you a perfect tester

A love for music - if you can move to music, you can dance: Same applies to testing also. If you have love for testing, and you can move to its music, you can be a good tester. A sense of rhythm: If you understand the product well and move along well, in a right rhythm, you win the game. ...

Responsibility of a tester – a different perspective

The responsibility of a tester is to ensure the peace of mind of the end users who are going to use the software product. Another target should be to safeguard customer's investment in the product. In order to discharge this responsibility, the tester should focus all his skills on understanding...

Why hit the people? Hit the process if there is a failure in a software project

People are not wrong, processes are. People in an organization do what they are told to do. Organizations who hit on people at the time of failure are not doing the right thing. It is the process that is to be blamed not the person with Q-tag. As long as quality is considered to be the child of...

Who owns the Q-Tag in a software development company?

In any software development and implementation company there is always a need of quality assurance and quality control people who own the responsibility of setting the right methodology and framework for development and implementation (QA), bugs identification and product approval (QC). Usually...

Five phases of Performance Testing

As in a software project, the complete project lifecycle comprises of different phases. Similarly the performance testing lifecycle also comprises of various phases. Performance testing is usually, as the name suggests, is done to evaluate or examine the performance of the software product with the...

If you don’t change with the ‘Change’ you get [ex][change]d

In my June 15 2009 post – “Do’s (+) and Don’ts (X) in Project Management”...

The life of a Project Manager in a Software Project

At the birth (inception) of a new software project the project manager is puzzled and confused just trying to gather and understand customer requirements. He starts like a wanderer in the dark islands of customer for collecting various requirements and understanding their business norms. The moment...

Five stages in a project when Software Tester becomes Quality Analyst

A software tester evaluates software based on certain parameters. These parameters are set as per product, customer and organization requirements. Testing could be just of functional features or include load, performance and security. For any parameters a tester has to work as quality analyst to...

Fifteen Checkpoints for project managers – if your commitment towards project merely a Pretence?

You, as a project manager are most crucial factor of a project being the key driver. Your commitment matters most as it can do any wonders. Your real commitment can put fire in your team member’s belly to run the project full swing. But if your commitment is merely Pretence, it can wipe off the...

Outsource in a software project without losing control over it

We learnt in earlier two posts about the strategic decision of a management to outsource a complete project or part(s) of a project depending on certain factors, and the factors respectively. In this post let us see at the various components of a project that are most widely outsourced or otherwise...

Five Reasons of outsourcing

Outsourcing is neither bad nor good. It is a strategic decision based on certain parameters taken by an organization to offload some projects or part of a project to a third party. Offloading certainly comes with many boons and many banes. Offloading should be managed very carefully as the project...

Role of Vendor and Customer in managing User Manuals

As already has been discussed, User Manuals play a crucial role in any software project and are the solid bonding between product, users, customer management and vendor project team. The stronger this bond is the more comfortable and happy each stakeholder will be. Each player has to play a crucial...

Six Pack User Manual – how to build

Six major key points that should be kept in mind while preparing User Manuals can be as listed below: 1. Simple – Never expect your product users to be as knowledgeable about your product as you are. Remember when you first time tried working on this product, how ignorant or untrained you...

Why User Manuals are so important in Software Project Management

The product owners or stakeholders might be many in a software project, but the real frontrunners who drive, run and use the software product post implementation are the key users and other users. It is their feedback that matters most. They must be the most comfortable lot on usability,...

Do’s (+) and Don’ts (X) in Project Management

Ten symptoms to know if your project is infected with influenza A (H1N1)

10. When you start getting increased number of bugs as compared to earlier releases 9. When your developers stop thinking about quality in code 8. When bugs pass through QC unnoticed 7. When you stop acknowledging quality efforts and start giving more importance to speed and volume of...

Ten Reasons of getting into pitfall of leaving a scope of software development at customer site

In the previous post we learnt what all could a software project could lead to in presence of higher scope of software development at customer site during implementation phase. Let us see what all factors are responsible of insufficient requirement gathering during business study phase of a...

Five pitfalls if you are leaving a scope of software development at customer site

Ideally, in a software project, for an offshore customer, the requirement gathering phase should be given an extra care to understand to a maximum extent so that the product developed and tested when ready for implementation at customer site requires no development. Practically, it is very...

Five guidelines for customer project team while filling Post Implementation Review form

The Post implementation review is usually filled collectively by customer project team and signed by the project sponsor, who is usually one of the senior members of management. This form is to be submitted back to vendor (after filling) to serve the purpose of – sharing experience, product...

How to prepare for Post Project Implementation Review?

Both vendor and customer have to understand that the real journey of a product starts only after a successful implementation of software at customer site. The challenges get a new meaning once the project team leaves the customer site after project sign-off. Both the managements can celebrate the...

Ten Components of a post implementation review

What is post implementation review? When it should be done? Why is it required? All this has been discussed in last three posts. Let us now understand what ideally would be the components of a post implementation review. As discussed earlier, some components can be answered immediately at the...

Post Implementation Review – When, ldeally?

When is to perform a post implementation review? A witty answer could be – obviously after implementation. Ha! Definitely a successful closure of implementation could declare a project closure with a formal project acceptance report or project sign off. So shall we have a post implementation...

Post Implementation Review – Why required?

A successful implementation does not ensure the completion of project. The reality starts when the implementation team has gone back and users have started using the project in full swing with the help of training material, learning, knowledge and product. The health of users in respect of using...

What is Post Implementation Review?

A Post implementation review is conducted after a substantial period from implementation sign-off. This review is to ascertain customer management’s and users’ experience on product in absence of product implementation team. The product has been implemented successfully and the team is gone....

5 reasons of top level customer expectations missing in requirement study document

As stated in previous two blogs, top level expectations gathering is very crucial during the business study and requirement gathering phase. And respectively I mentioned how vendor and customer can be careful (and should be) about that. Although it is rare and unexpected, but there are instances...

Customer’s role in business study and requirement gathering phase of a software project

Usually it is the customer top level person who is project sponsor for a software development project, be it in-house or from a software development vendor. A Project Sponsor may presume that his/her roles during the project would be – sign agreement and papers, assign roles down the line for the...

Vendor’s role in involving customer top management while requirement gathering phase

The most critical stage in software project lifecycle is business study and requirement gathering. Vendor has to be very cautious and careful in understanding all levels expectations from the product they are going to build for the customer. Skipping top level at this stage could be disastrous for...

How to manage Change Management – in terms of scope of the project

Scope defined and decided upon initially by vendor and customer mutually has a large impact on timeline, progress and success of a project. A change in scope at a later stage may call for a big impact on project schedule and progress. Let us see the roles of vendor and customer respectively in this...

SIGNificance of Sign-offs at appropriate stages

Sign-off at various stages has a significant importance during project lifecycle. Everyday sign-off can be a headache for customer, no sign-off can cause headache for vendor, so there has to be a balance of sign-offs of milestones, achievements and stages of project so that the sanctity of...

Two aspects in Change Management in Software Project

Change management is a subset of project management. In any software project change is to be managed during the whole cycle of development and implementation. Requirements once specified by customer at the business requirements study phase does not mean that there will be no change in requirements...

Change Management in terms of people – how to manage during a project

Although it can not be avoided in real life scenario and that is why there is a risk plan and risk management to avoid such circumstances. But still a lot can be done to atleast minimize the risk and thereby mitigation. Vendor - Management has to ensure the bare minimum changes (preferably NO...

Project Management Practices – whose call – vendor or customer

Project initiation starts with the marriage of vendor and customer to produce the desired software product. The desire comes from customer, with a promise from vendor to deliver the desired product. The time and investment (in terms of people, equipments, and expenses) calls for a superior quality...

Roles of Vendor and Customer Project Managers to avoid Project Overrun

Project management is a joint effort of vendor and customer teams. Project Organization members have to play their respective roles timely and religiously to get the best of the results. Both have to go hand in hand right from the start of the project till end and even beyond. The relationship does...

Project Overrun – who to blame

Project overrun is not unknown for any software organization. Every organization who has tasted it would acknowledge that it is always painful – in terms of time, cost and resources. Ultimately when the other two factors are also converted to cost, it comes to a voluminous figure. Nobody wants...

Project Overrun – what is crucial – time, money or both?

A classic scenario happened in an organization recently as told to me by a project manager of that organization engaged in software development and implementations. It is related to project overrun. A new project started with a set of requirements from a customer for development and...