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Articles, Whitepapers, Research Notes and other publications that cronicle Configuration Management and related development issues. |
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| Accelerate Development By Getting Requirements Right |
 Requirements management is an often underutilized discipline in software development. Yet the economic benefits – lowered development costs, faster development and better products that delight customers – have plainly been demonstrated in study after study. In this paper, renowned engineering process expert Karl Wiegers makes the case for requirements management as an integral part of any product lifecycle. Metrics are provided to show the positive effect of requirements management, from individual developers to the business to the customer. Serena® Dimensions™ RM and Serena Composer are examined as an example of how to bring effective requirements planning and management into product development.
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| How much time do you waste on slow or broken software builds? |
| Process improvements and enhanced tools can only do so much to boost productivity if builds are still limiting your throughput.
Accurate dependencies are critical to successful builds, and yet are all too often missing or broken. Learn practical ways to tackle the dependency problem and break the build bottleneck.
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| A Practical Guide to ISO 27001 |
| IT Governance Ltd has launched the world's first practical guides to help company directors and IT project managers understand and achieve certification to ISO 27001, the newly published global certification standard for information security management (replaces BS7799 and complements ISO 17799). |
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| A Roadmap for Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) 1.4.2 and 1.5 |
by Calvin Austin - June 25, 2003
By the end of 2003, Java developers will be able to get their hands on a beta version of Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 1.5 (J2SE 1.5). This release and the current 1.4 updates, 1.4.1 and 1.4.2, were covered in the J2SE roadmap session at the 2003 JavaOne Conference. If you were unable to attend the session, or want to refresh your memory, here are the key points from the talk. |
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| A Special Guide to Configuration Management Tools (August '05 SD Magazine) |
| The configuration management marketplace is vast — hundreds of commercial and open source products are available for consideration. Consequently, the selections listed in the Tool Matrix represent only a fraction of the total solution set, to demonstrate the diversity of some products and the popularity of others. Some are well established, best-of-breed choices while others are relatively new to the marketplace but offer innovative approaches to lifecycle management problems that are as old as software development itself. |
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| AccuRev Aims High in SCM |
| AccuRev says in today's often complex, parallel and geographically distributed development teams (not least thanks to an increasing amount of offshore application development), the ability to dynamically change the hierarchies, mappings and flows between different team members and project groups is essential. New project teams can be added, removed or reassigned during the project, for instance, without having to redraw the whole project from scratch. |
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| AccuRev gives SCM system global focus |
| With a focus on global, distributed development, AccuRev believes its new SCM package, AccuRev 4.0, differentiates itself from its chief rival, IBM Rational ClearCase.
Having recently joined the Eclipse Foundation for open source developer tools, AccuRev also is participating in the Eclipse Application Lifecycle Framework project. This effort focuses on developing a standardized set of Web services for integrating IDEs, requirements management tools, software configuration management tools, and testing tools.
The Eclipse effort eventually will supercede AccuRev's AccuBridge technology for use in Eclipse environments.
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| AccuRev Integrates with IBM Rational, MKS |
| The company, which has thus far stuck to its SCM knitting rather than trying to build out a broad application lifecycle management (ALM) suite, claims that the SCM tools in many broader ALM suites are "undifferentiated legacy SCM tools".
To back up its claim, it said one of its customers, carrier Ethernet provider World Wide Packets, swapped out the SCM element of its ALM suite in order to use AccuRev and MKS Integrity Manager.
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| AccuRev readies to take on IBM Rational’s ClearCase |
By Jeff Miller - Mass High Tech
No one can accuse AccuRev’s 12 employees of setting their sights too low. Backed by just $500,000 in angel financing raised in 2001, the company aims to unseat IBM Rational ClearCase as the management platform of choice for software developers.
It’s taken nearly six years, but AccuRev is finally beginning to land some sizable accounts. Last month, the company won its biggest customer yet: a 300-seat sale to Chelmsford-based human resources software maker Kronos Inc. |
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| Agile Software Development: The People Factor |
by Jim Highsmith
IEEE article on Agile Software Development. AGILE IS FOR PEOPLE The most important implication to managers working in the agile manner is that it places more emphasis on people factors in the project: amicability, talent, skill, and communication. These qualities become a primary concern for the would-be agile team. Skill development is important, so that each person can deliver more value with time. |
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| All That You Require |
| Requirements management is not new, but in recent times it has moved from an independent step to an on-going part of the development lifecycle. Jason Stamper reports. |
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| Analyzing Defect Tracking Metrics |
| Most software projects fail to deliver on-time and on-budget. To reduce the risk of failure, project managers should implement defect tracking measurements as well as project management measurements, allowing them to more accurately estimate projects and to enhance the quality of releases.
The key to efficient defect tracking measurement and project management measurements is to first determine what goals you are trying to accomplish and what problems you are attacking. Many organizations waste time and money by measuring more things than are necessary. Before beginning a measurement strategy, determine the goals for your measurement. Here are some common reasons for not delivering on-time and on-budget:
Software coding efforts are not properly estimated
Testing efforts are not properly estimated
Software quality is poor, therefore the testing duration is longer than need be
Customer changes impact the software project, thereby extending the project dates
Attacking the Common Problems
Software Coding Efforts are Not Properly Estimated
This problem normally arises due these issues:
Customer Requirements - To properly estimate coding effort, you must create solid customer requirements. The requirements must contain adequate detail to allow the programmers to create detailed designs. From a measurement perspective, you should track the amount of time it takes to develop each customer requirement. Track both estimated and actual hours so that you can use this information to improve future estimates.
Detailed Designs - It is impossible to estimate coding effort without creating a detailed design. The detailed design allows the developer to think through all the tasks that must be done to deliver each requirement. From a measurement perspective, you should track the amount of time it takes to develop each detailed design. Track both estimated and actual hours so that you can use this information to improve future estimates.
Testing Efforts are Not Properly Estimated
This problem normally arises due these issues:
Test Plans - Once the customer requirement and detailed design is created and estimated, the test leader should create a detailed test plan that estimates the testing effort. This is done by thinking through the test cases that will be created based on the requirement and design. From a measurement perspective, you should track the amount of time it takes to develop each test plan. Track both estimated and actual hours so that you can use this information to improve future estimates.
Software Quality is Poor
This problem normally arises due these issues:
No Code Reviews - If regular code reviews are not done, there is a much higher chance of delivering software with poor quality. For large projects, these problems are compounded over time, so it is best to do code reviews early and often (at least weekly). From a measurement perspective, you should track the amount of rework time required due to failed code reviews. This can aid you in planning for rework on future projects.
Failed Smoke Tests - By running weekly smoke tests, you can shorten the testing phase as issues are caught early in the coding and testing cycle. From a measurement perspective, track the number of test cases passed and failed during smoke tests, week by week. The goal is to reduce the number of failed test cases as the project progresses.
Defect Tracking - As testing commences, track the number of open defects vs. total defects to help predict project release dates. Track the number of defects found during code reviews vs. test case execution. This will help track and improve estimation accuracy. Track the percentage of total defects before product release, as this will help assess product quality.
Customer Changes Impact the Software Project
This problem normally arises due these issues:
Missing Change Control Processes - As a project progresses, clients sometimes ask for features to be changed or for features to be added or removed. Before making any changes to the project, each request should be thoroughly investigated and a risk assessment should be done for each request. If changes are necessary and agreed upon by the client, project timelines are adjusted. From a measurement perspective, track the number of change requests, how many were approved vs. rejected, and the effort for estimating reviewing and assessing each change request. This information can be used in future projects to predict the number number of change requests that are approved and estimated as to build time into your projects to mitigate that risk.
Consider using a web-based Solution to Manage the Software Lifecycle
When choosing a solution, look for one that is web-based and manages all phases of the software lifecycle, including customer requirements, test cases and defect, bugs and issues. Document sharing and integrated discussion forums are a plus. Some vendors that offer this: Defect Tracker Software Planner
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| AppLabs - Software testing services. |
| AppLabs offers software testing and custom application development services. Founded in 1998, it has grown to become a recognized boutique firm serving leading companies worldwide. Our customers include many of the best-known technology companies as well as business leaders in healthcare, life sciences, and financial services industries.
AppLabs is headquartered in Philadelphia, USA and has development and testing facilities in Hyderabad, India. It prides itself in attracting and retaining the best technical minds that can solve the most complex problems facing our customers.
The company's motto is "In Quality We Trust". Adhering to the highest quality standards in every aspect of our operation is a source of great pride to us and forms the foundation of our company. AppLabs is an ISO 9001: 2000 certified and also a CMM Level 5 company.
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| Application Testing Software and Tips |
| Topic: Application Testing
Application testing is the process of testing software in a way that provides a high degree of quality and low degree of risk associated with moving the software to production. Below are some tips for developing your testing strategy for using application testing software to manage it:
Plan Your Testing. Once the customer requirements are gathered, your team should plan your testing strategy. The best way to do this is to meet with the project sponsor to determine the level of testing needed and the areas that will be tested. Click here for a Test Plan template to get you started.
Prepare Test Cases once Development Begins. Once the programmers begin developing code to meet the customer requirements, the testing team should developed detailed test cases that will be run once the development is complete. By doing this in advance, it gives your team plenty of time to thoroughly think out all items you wish to test. Click here for a Test Case template to get you started.
Use Application Testing Software. Putting your customer requirements and test cases on-line is an effective way to enhance quality. It allows you to easily tie test cases to customer requirements ensuring traceability. Robust application testing software and management tools allow you to also manage bugs, customer requirements, and test cases. Some vendors that offer this: Defect Tracker Software Planner
Reference Aids:
For your convenience, we have added links to Defect Tracker, allowing you to try using a tool to aid in your bug management efforts:
Defect Tracker Guided Tour
Defect Tracker Free 2 Week Trial
Defect Tracker Pricing Information
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| Archiving Data to Increase Data Warehouse Performance |
Customers turn to data archiving to address data warehouse performance, availability woes
by Stephen Swoyer
When organizations are concerned about the size and performance of their data warehouses, they often turn to data-quality or data-profiling tools to help solve the problem. Thanks to a technology that got its start in relational database environments, these customers have another option as well.
Data archiving describes the process of moving aged or infrequently accessed information out of data warehouse and into near-line or off-line storage. Logical links remain, so as far as the data warehouse is concerned, nothing has changed. But in many cases, the size of a data warehouse can be dramatically compacted in this fashion. Advocates say this results in improved data warehouse performance and—paradoxically—better availability.
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| BS15000 |
| BS15000 is the world's first formal standard for IT Service Management developed by the British Standards Institute.
The standard specifies a set of inter-related management processes, and is based upon the ITIL framework. Written by acknowledged industry experts and practitioners, the standard is viewed across the industry as a crucial step in turning Best Practice into reality.
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| CA moves to Web-enable change management software |
| By MARC L. SONGINI
(April 17, 2001) Computer Associates International Inc. today announced that it's Web-enabling portions of its change management software line and combining the products into a single suite, in a move aimed at simplifying the configuration and re-engineering of business applications by users. |
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| Careers: IT Salaries Expand Slowly |
| by Stephen Swoyer - 11/9/2004
Starting salaries will increase only modestly in 2005, although in-demand specialties should see much bigger increases.
What’s in store for IT professionals salary-wise in 2005? IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology says to expect more of the same.
The technology staffing firm projects that starting salaries will increase by 0.5 percent in 2005, although high-demand specialties (including information security and quality assurance) should see much bigger increases. One-half of a percentage point is no great shakes, to be sure, but it’s far better than last year’s showing, when Robert Half projected a 1.6 percent decline in base compensation. |
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| Change for Change's Sake |
| Uttam Narsu, a principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said many of today's SCM solutions lack the flexibility enterprise shops need to manage and merge multiple development processes used throughout their organization, although he noted more offerings are building these capabilities in-mostly through acquisition, as Serena did with TeamShare and as IBM added to Rational.
Enter a fast-growing company called AccuRev, which markets a CM solution that the company claims is the first clean-sheet approach to the problem in more than two decades, and which Narsu described as "certainly innovative." |
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| Change Management |
| Software product development incurs change. For solid change management, it is best to have a Change Control Board. The Change Control Board normally consists of the project manager, client manager, development (programming) manager, quality assurance manager, user documentation manager, and support manager.
As new changes are requested, the Change Control Board analyzes the risks and rewards of the proposed change. They analyze how the change affects the overall schedule, costs, and feature set.
Below are some guidelines for the Change Control Board and details on how to best apply change management:
OK to say "No" - If the project team has done a good job of collecting requirements and managing the software life cycle, many features have already been reviewed and prioritized before coding begins. If the new requirement is not worth the time of analyzing it, then it is not worth the time to implement it, therefore, it should be rejected immediately. Normally, a good Change Control Board will say "No" more times that it says "Yes", as to ensure that only critical changes are implemented.
Changes should be Bundled - A large number of small changes, when done independently, can greatly affect the project timeline because each one affects many areas of the system (analysis, coding, testing, user documentation, support, etc). To gain economies of scale and effective use of personnel, it is wise to document a set of changes at one time and include them into a bundled release. By doing this, you eliminate a lot of the convergence needed with implementing each feature separately.
Eliminate Bureaucracy - Some Change Control Boards are tainted by individuals that just like to say "No" for the sake being in charge. This can bring ill-will to a project, when it seems as if the Change Control Board is not making decisions that are in the best interest of the project. To eliminate this problem, educate all members of the Change Control Board before the project begins. Ensure they understand that there will be frivolous changes that will be submitted as well as legitimate changes necessary for the product to be marketable and to meet the needs of the business. So as each new change is suggested, have a risk/rewards discussion that documents the business reasons for the change and the risk associated with the change. Documenting and publishing your findings for each change request provides understanding and buy-in from members that requested the change.
Document Changes - Document each change by first assigning the change request a unique tracking number. Then have your team do an analysis of the risk/rewards for the change and document that. It is wise to use an on-line change management solution that allows you to track the changes and manage the workflow of it (reviewing, approving and rejecting changes). There are many solutions for aiding you in this process. For example, Software Planner (http://www.softwareplanner.com) has a functional specifications feature that tracks change requests and allow you to manage the associated workflow. |
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| Change Management - A quick study - by Leslie Jaye Goff |
| Computerworld (February 14, 2000) The online revolution and its effect on corporate America has proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks, but don't expect that old dog to just roll over; it's going to bark and whine and chase its tail plenty before it gives you its paw. |
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| Change Managment Can Yield More Information |
| "Project-management data is only as good as the data entered by the project manager" in most project tracking systems, Gartner's Duggan says. "When you can get your data direct from your run-time system, that's a big deal," he says of the MKS product. |
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| Choosing Bug Tracker Software |
| Many large companies already use bug tracker software to improve their software quality. Because of costs, many small to mid-sized companies use spreadsheets and home grown solutions for their bug tracking software, which are less than optimal.
In recent years, a number of low-cost bug tracker software solutions have become available, allowing small to mid-sized companies to manage projects with the same level of quality as enjoyed by bigger companies. Below are some things to think about when choosing bug tracking software for small to mid-sized companies.
Rent vs. Own. Choose a provider that allows you to "rent" the software for a low monthly fee instead of purchasing the base product, which is more expensive. Some vendors allow renting software like this for as little as $30 per concurrent user per month.
Look for Concurrent User Licenses. Look for a provider that offers concurrent user licenses. This licensing scheme allows you to have any number of people use the software, it simply limits the number of people that can use it at the same time. This model also allows you to grow your licenses as your team grows.
Manage all Phases of the Software Lifecycle. When choosing a solution, look for one that is web-based and manages all phases of the software lifecycle, including customer requirements, test cases and defect, bugs and issues. Document sharing and integrated discussion forums are a plus. Some vendors that offer this: Defect Tracker Software Planner
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| Closing the collaboration gap |
SourceForge Enterprise Fusion and Merant Professional bring distributed development teams together
by James R. Borck - InfoWorld March 05, 2004
Poor planning and miscommunication can set any software development project adrift, and missteps can be even more costly when programmers are spread throughout the country or across the globe. The success of distributed software development depends on effective Web-based tools for team collaboration and project management. |
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| CollabNet Enterprise Edition |
| CollabNet Enterprise Edition provides CIOs, IT Executives, Business Executives, and Project Managers with real-time insight into the overall application development process and delivers process predictability that allows teams to mitigate business risks before they reach critical levels. This release also provides new functionality for wide area network (WAN)-based software development for global projects and has upgrades to existing capabilities that are imperative for cost-effective application development in industries.
Options for CollabNet Enterprise Edition include CollabNet SCM, designed specifically for distributed, Internet-based versioning; CollabNet Project Dashboard, which provides Executives and Project Managers with real-time, color-coded reports and graphs to manage software development complexity; CollabNet Task Management, a user-intuitive, project management, to-do list and status-reporting tool; and the CollabNet Bridge for IBM Rational ClearCase, which allows users to extend their investment in IBM Rational ClearCase with the collaborative software development capabilities of CollabNet Enterprise Edition. |
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| Compliance Tools Span the Functional Gamut |
| You’ve probably heard this already: Forward-thinking companies will use regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) not as a costly setback, but as an opportunity to improve business processes.
Easy for the analysts to say, but how do you make that happen?
...Another approach to compliance automation is using existing tools purchased for other purposes, such as software change and configuration management (SCM) tools. Vendors include companies such as Serena Software, Mercury Interactive, and MKS, Inc.
According to IDC research director Melissa Webster, "MKS was out of the gate early on with a compliance message, and it appears to have brought them mind-share."
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| Content Management in Three Courses: Taste, Snack, and Meal |
by Howard McQueen -
The pursuit of technology, initially fueled by the mid-'90s popularization of the Internet, which then blazed white hot through the fall of 2001, is now smoldering. Gone is the mass insanity of e-enabling everything. We are sobering up, as it were, in a state of technology detox.
Many early adopters of cutting-edge content management (CM) technologies have discovered their annual cost to maintain these systems now exceeds their original, six- to seven-figure investment. They are also discovering that using more than the top 10% of the product features is extremely complex and expensive. None of these costs were part of original expectations or forecasts. The lesson we're learning is content management technologies that are not flexible or open create a dead-weight, a disabling handicap, and create a liability rather than leverage. |
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| Continuous Integration: The Cornerstone of a Great Shop |
| This article shows how continuous integration of configuration, build and test management can help to keep projects on track.
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| Cruising Past the Tech Crash |
| "Thrill your customers."
So says Phil Deck, the Canadian entrepreneur whose trajectory through the tech boom — and escape before the crash — rivals the thrills he's generating in his latest corporate incarnation, MKS Inc. |
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| Do you Speak ITIL? |
| The 'Information Technology Infrastructure Library' - ITIL
- takes its name from a series of publications written by dedicated IT professionals and industry experts giving guidance on Best Practice IT Service Management (ITSM).
Since the publication of its first elements in 1989 ITIL has fast become the most recognized and accepted framework for IT Service Management in the world.
Axios Systems was the first IT Service Management software vendor to adopt the ITIL philosophy and pioneered assyst as the original ITIL software solution.
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| Fed Regs and the Return of the IT Audit - Part of ADT Magazine's SCM feature |
| One trend in software configuration and change management tools is what Gartner analyst Jim Duggan calls “the rediscovery of the IT audit as something you have to worry about.”
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| Fundamentals of Risk Management |
| This paper will help you understand what risk is, its levels, the types of risk, a framework for effective risk management, the responses to risk, and the risk of inaction. |
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| HR Corner |
| Recently a friend of mine was telling me how he has been contractually obligated to train his own replacement. Thousands of jobs are being OffShored these days and one of the Personnel issues is that terminated employees are finding that, as part of their severance agreement, they must train their own replacements. ... There are ways to soften the blow and even improve your own position as a result. One step is to get advise from a lawyer with a background in personnel law. But there is actually a lot more that you can do creatively to put yourself in the best position possible. Some of these steps won't cost your employer anything and could put you in a better position to find your next job. Read on if you'd like to examine how you can protect yourself and your career in the era of Technology OffShoring! |
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| IBM sees big demand for content management |
| Reuters - February 25, 2003- IBM hopes to see double-digit growth in one of its key software divisions in 2003, despite a chronic slowdown in corporate technology spending, the unit's general manager said Monday.
The division is responsible for content management software, which is used to manage the vast amounts of corporate data and images that are stored and searched by employees on a daily basis.
Content management sales grew 26 percent in 2002, over the prior year, said Janet Perna, head of the Data Management Software Group for IBM. |
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| Issue Tracking |
| Topic: Issue Tracking
The goal of most software vendors is to create exciting software that has high quality, is easy to use and is completed on-time and on-budget. However, issues arise with all software development efforts. Issues come in many different forms and using issue tracking software can aid in ensuring that issues do not stall the progress of your software. Below are common issues that arise and can be tracked using issue tracking software:
Project Issues. Software must be planned from inception to production. Along the way, many project related tasks and issues may surface. For example, market research must be done for product viability, features must be defined, designs must be created, and budgets must be established. Along the way, issues will surely crop up and specific team members must be assigned the issues and the resolution must be tracked. Issue tracking software can greatly aid in your ability to identify and track the resolution of issues online. For example, issues can be assigned, the percentage complete can be tracked and the resolution can be tracked. Example of using an issue tracking software to track tasks and issues. Vendor: Software Planner
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| Leading and Learning - Where to find the best leadership resources on the W |
| By MARI KEEFE, COMPUTERWORLD RESEARCH DIRECTOR (March 23, 2001) As business and technology become more inextricably combined, broader perspectives and whole new patterns of management and leadership for IT executives and managers are needed. It’s not enough to know just IT anymore; you have to understand the business as a whole. And leadership is more important than ever: You know the way, and now you need to show your team the way. |
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| Listening - A Tool for Leadership and Commitment |
| Learn how to turn ordinary employees into highly motivated, highly committed superstars who love to come to work. Provides the whats, whys and specific how tos needed by execs, managers, supervisors. |
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| Look into the Future of Content Management |
Tony Byrne - byrne@cmswatch.com -
Predictions of consolidation in the Content Management (CM) vendor arena have appeared in nearly every major industry prognosis over the past two years. Gartner Group, for example, recently reiterated its prediction that half the CM vendors in existence in mid-2001 would leave the marketplace by the end of 2002. Analysts consistently advise prospective CM buyers to tread carefully because their vendor may not stick around. But fortunately, the story goes, fewer vendor choices will finally bring greater clarity and sharper differentiators to this otherwise very messy product landscape. |
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| Managing Production Deployment of Java Applications |
| MKS Product Integrations Manager, Brad Van Horne discusses how a tightly integrated SCM and change management system, combined with a mature build process, can address many of the complex issues facing today's enterprise Java development teams, written for WebSphere Developer's Journal Magazine. |
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| Managing Software Requirements |
| Getting a customers requirements down on paper is like an insurance policy for both parties. Not only does this insure that the customer receives everything they need but also that communication is clear from the beginning.
Managing a customers software requirements is an essential part of the life cycle. Once the requirements are defined, they should be reviewed with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that all the requirement details are fully defined and that each requirement is absolutely necessary for the release of the software.
The process of reviewing each requirement in detail is called Requirements Scrubbing. Each requirement should be evaluated objectively by the JAD Session members and a decision should be made as to whether the requirement is absolutely necessary for the upcoming release. Any requirements that can be eliminated from the upcoming release will have a direct savings on time and money, as it eliminates the need to go through design, programming, testing and documentation. All requirements that are not absolutely necessary for the upcoming release can be marked for a future release.
Each requirement should be evaluated for the following criteria:
Is the requirement absolutely necessary for the upcoming release? If not, it should be moved to a future release.
Is the requirement sufficiently defined so that the designers will easily be able to provide a design for the requirement?
Is the requirement in it's simplest form? Many times requirements are not well thought out and can be more complex than is needed. This causes unneeded time and effort in the programming and testing phases.
Can you substitute other options for a requirement? For example, let's say that you have a requirement that calls for a spell checker to be implemented for your user interface. However, another team in your company has already created a web service that does the same thing and it has been fully tested. This is a good example as to where you can use another option that yields the same result but with faster and improved execution.
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| Managing Workflow for Project Management |
| Managing Workflow for Project Management
September 2006 - Pragmatic Software Newsletters
For teams managing software development, it is crucial to manage the workflow around the project management process so that everyone understands how a task moves from definition to completion. Below are some tips for defining the workflow for software project management.
Define the Workflow Statuses - When tracking project tasks, it is important to define the workflow. Workflow is normally tracked via the "status". Let's create a simple workflow for a software development team, where the project manager creates the task and tracks the status through completion of the task. Below are some possible sets of statuses (workflow) for this process. Workflow Statuses:
New
Awaiting Design
Design Completed
Awaiting Client Approval
Approved
Rejected
Work in Progress
Completed
Closed
Flowchart the Workflow - Flowcharting the workflow allows team members to understand the process in full. We created the flowchart below using Microsoft Word.
Advanced Workflow - In our example above, we used simple workflow. However, if your team uses software to manage project tasks, you should be able to implement more robust workflow. For example, the software should allow you to define "state transitions". This identifies how a status can transition from one status to another. In our example, above, you may want to setup these transitions:
» New - Can only transition to Awaiting Design
» Awaiting Design - Can only transition to Design Completed
» Design Completed - Can only transition to Awaiting Client Approval
» Awaiting Client Approval - Can only transition to Approved or Rejected
» Rejected - Can only transition to Closed
» Approved - Can only transition to Work in Progress
» Work in Progress - Can only transition to Completed
» Completed - Can only transition to Closed
» Closed - No transitions allowed
Likewise, the software should also allow you to define what fields (or items) you wish to make required upon different states. In the example above, if the task is changed to Rejected, we may want to require that the project manager enter the reason for rejection. Robust project tracking software will allow you to define the field attributes for each state transition. Software Planner (http://www.SoftwarePlanner.com) does this nicely, you can see how this is handled from Software Planner by viewing this movie:
http://www.pragmaticsw.com/GuidedTours/Default.asp?FileName=Workflow
Recording Project Results - Prior to beginning a project, it is important to estimate each task that must be performed for the project. As the project progresses, team members should keep track of how much time it took to perform each task. It is also important to identify an allowable variance. For example, upon completion of the project, if our actual hours/costs were within 5% of the estimate, we will consider it a success. Once the project is completed, run reports that show whether the project was successful (based on your variance allowance). How do you do this?
First, you must detail each of the requirements and develop a list of tasks for the delivery of each requirement (if you need help developing requirements, click here). With a good set of requirements, the project manager can work with the project team (programmers, testers, etc) to develop a list of tasks that must be completed for each requirement, along with the estimated effort of each task. Once this is done, record your list of tasks, assign them to team members, and track their progress. As tasks are completed, record the number of actual hours it took to complete each task, as to allow you to determine the correctness your estimation process. Upon completion of the project (all tasks are 100% complete), run reports that show you how well you did. You can use this information on future projects, to create a buffer for improving the estimation process.
For example, let's assume we started a project for a new release of our Widgets product (Widgets Release 4.1). At the beginning of the project, we collected the requirements, identified and and estimated each task, and we decided that a 5% variance on the project was acceptable. As the project progressed, our team members logged time toward each task. Upon completion of the project, we analyzed the project results. See the Basic and Advanced Approaches below to see how the project turned out.
Basic Approach - If you do not have a software development lifecycle tool, a low-cost and simple approach to this is to create a spreadsheet that contains a list of your tasks and assignment information. As your team members work on items, each day you should make note of actual hours and costs thus far, and percentage complete. As items are finished, update the spreadsheet with Actual Hours, Actual Costs, and Completion Date. After all tasks are completed, analyze whether the project was successful, see attached spreadsheet to see how we did it.
Example: ProjectOverview.xls
Advanced Approach - A better approach is to utilize an SDLC tool that allows tracking of project tasks, assignment of the tasks to team members, tracking of hours and costs, and allows the team members to update their percentage complete. For ease of update, the software should be web based, so that it can be accessed from any location. To do this, you can use Software Planner, Microsoft Project or some other project management tool. The disadvantage of using windows-based tools (like Microsoft Project) is that they are not web based, so individual team members can not easily update their hours, costs and percentage complete; the project manager is forced to update that information. Software Planner (and other web based tools), empower the people doing the work to update this information, and has email alerts that alert the Project Manager as items are updated. Once the project is completed, run reports that analyze whether the project was successful, see attached reports so you can see how we did it.
Examples:
A) Project Tasks By Project Report - By reviewing this report, we can quickly see that our project went OK. The cost overruns were 5 hours of work, relating to $1,035 in costs. At the beginning of the project, we had agreed that if we were within 5% of our hours can and costs, we would consider the project a success. Based on reviewing this report, we were within 2% variance, which is OK. However, it would be good to drill down a little further and determine what tasks and what resources (people) contributed to the overage. See the next report to determine that.
B) Project Tasks By Assignee Report - By reviewing this report, we can see that a couple of team members really excelled. Notice that Jennie Jones, Mary Jones, and John Tester actually finished their tasks under budget. However, John Doe and Joe Millionaire finished their tasks over budget. We may want to analyze their tasks further to determine why they had overages, and if we need to change our estimating techniques when assigning tasks to these individuals.
Helpful Templates
Below are some helpful templates to aid you in developing software solutions on-time and on-budget:
Project Management Guidelines - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/ProjectMgtGuidelines.rtf
Functional Specifications - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/FunctionalSpec.rtf
Architectural Overview - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/ArchitectureOverview.rtf
Detailed Design - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/DetailedDesign.rtf
Strategic Planning Document - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/StrategicPlanning.rtf
Test Design - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/TestDesign.rtf
Risk Assessment - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/Risk%20Assessment.rtf
Weekly Status - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/WeeklyStatusRpt.rtf
User Acceptance Test Release Report - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/UATRelease.rtf
Post Mortem Report - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Pragmatic/Templates/PostMortem.rtf
All Templates - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Templates.htm
Prior Newsletters - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Newsletters.htm
Software Planner - http://www.SoftwarePlanner.com
Defect Tracker - http://www.DefectTracker.com
Remoteus (Remote Desktop Sharing) - http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Remoteus.asp
About the Author
Steve Miller is the President of Pragmatic Software (http://www.PragmaticSW.com). With over 20 years of experience, Steve has extensive knowledge in project management, software architecture and test design. Steve publishes a monthly newsletter for companies that design and develop software. You can read other newsletters at http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Newsletters.htm. Steve's email is steve.miller@PragmaticSW.com.
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Pragmatic Software Co., Inc.
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Englewood, CO 80112 Phone: 303.768.7480
Fax: 303.768.7481
Web site: http://www.PragmaticSW.com
E-mail: info@PragmaticSW.com
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| MKS pushes "home-grown" change management suite |
| MKS defended its decision to build its software change management suite in-house, rather than via acquisition like certain of its competitors. |
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| MKS Refreshes Change Management Suite, Adds 'Dashboard' View |
| The new Management Dashboard provides executives with graphical charts, reports, and metrics that track various things like defect trend rates, work status, and work distribution across the IT organization, including all major platforms and outside developers.
However, while sales have been good, many companies are still choosing to use manual processes to achieve compliance in their first SOX audits. |
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| MKS Sticks to Its Knitting: Enterprise SCM |
| MKS Chairman and CEO, Philip C. Deck, believes that his company’s direct relationship with its customers will create plenty of opportunities in the SCM market. |
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| NASA app to cut costs |
| By DAVID ORENSTEIN
Computerworld (November 16, 1998) Decision support software designed by NASA should help air traffic controllers land commercial flights more quickly and could eventually save $800 million per year in fuel costs and reduced delays.
The new applications are efficient not only in the air, but also on the ground. NASA developers made advanced use of a distributed software configuration management tool to ease the application development process. |
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| NASA leads efforts to build better software |
| By PATRICK THIBODEAU -FEBRUARY 07, 2003
WASHINGTON -- NASA's mission software systems are considered to be among the best-engineered in the world. But software has its limits, and NASA realized after the 1999 crash of the unmanned Mars Polar Lander that it needed help. |
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| Opening the Black Box: IT Controls Aid Compliance |
| By helping companies to document cryptic IT processes, development frameworks promote compliance and improve productivity along the way.
How does enterprise software change- and configuration-management help meet compliance requirements? |
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| Optimizing Development Compliance |
| Achieving sustainable development compliance and governance is not just about keeping pace with regulatory rulebooks. It's about establishing an integrated approach to development that links critical processes and information to improve the overall quality, timeliness, and visibility into the company's mission critical systems.
This paper outlines the critical elements for sustainable compliance, and shows how build and release management plays a key role to give teams accountability, traceability, reproducibility, and control across their development projects. |
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| Oracle tools ease database management |
| By REBECCA SYKES
Computerworld (March 05, 1998) Oracle Corp. has announced three Enterprise Manager Packs that were designed to help information systems professionals manage Oracle8 and Oracle7 databases.
Available now as options to Oracle databases, the new products are Tuning Pack, Diagnostics Pack and Change Management Pack, according to a statement from the company. Pricing isn't yet available, an Oracle spokesman said. |
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| Parallel Development Strategies for Software Configuration Management |
| This article describes business situations where parallel development is necessary and examines strategies for configuration management in each situation. |
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| Problem Management Tools |
| The goal of most software vendors is to create exciting software that has high quality, is easy to use and is completed on-time and on-budget. However, issues arise with all software development efforts. Issues come in many different forms and using issue tracking software can aid in ensuring that issues do not stall the progress of your software. Below are common issues that arise and can be tracked using issue tracking software:
Project Issues. Software must be planned from inception to production. Along the way, many project related tasks and issues may surface. For example, market research must be done for product viability, features must be defined, designs must be created, and budgets must be established. Along the way, issues will surely crop up and specific team members must be assigned the issues and the resolution must be tracked. Issue tracking software can greatly aid in your ability to identify and track the resolution of issues online. For example, issues can be assigned, the percentage complete can be tracked and the resolution can be tracked. Example of using an issue tracking software to track tasks and issues. Vendor: Software Planner
Software Defects and Coding Issues. After software has been programmed, defects and issues must be tracked to ensure the software has high quality. Example of using an issue tracking software to track defects and issues. Vendor: Defect Tracker or
Risk Management. Managing risk is another form of issue management. Here is a template to aid you in managing risk.
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| Problem Management Tools |
| Tools marketed as problem management tools may fulfill different functions. While not a comprehensive list, below are some of the common capabilities of problem management software:
Support Ticket Management - Problems are identified by having your clients call in or fill out a support ticket online. Input could come from a variety of geographically dispersed locations. Support tickets are normally assigned to support personnel and allow the end client to monitor the status of their support ticket online. There are many different vendors that have this capabilities via problem management software. Here is an examples of how one vendor does it: Defect Tracker
Problem Tracking - Problem tracking entails managing the software development process and authorizing and managing changes to software. This includes work (task) management (who, what, when, due date, status) and allows teams to analyze results via statistics and metrics. Examples of how another vendor (Software Planner) does this using project management software: Task Management Change (Requirements) Management
Some organizations only need one of these functions, while others need both. Many organizations choose to integrate their problem management and configuration management tools to gain better control of their development activities and to improve quality. |
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| Project Management |
| Useful Tools for this White Paper
Software Planner - Use for tracking all phases of the software life cycle including customer requirements, defects, and test cases, fully web-based. Free 2 Week Trial
Pragmatic Office - Use for team collaboration. Serves as an intranet and/or extranet. Free 2 Week Trial
Web Information Center - Use for Enterprise reporting, allows distributing of Crystal Reports and Pivot tables via the web.
Sign up for our free monthly newsletters, with tips, tricks and best-practices for managing the entire software life cycle:
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Topic: Project Management
Proper planning is essential for any project. Unfortunately, very few projects go as planned. Projects that fail often follow a common pattern. Normally projects fail due to issues with:
Personnel - These issues range from wrong skill sets to bad work environments.
Project Management - These issues relate to improper processes and techniques for managing projects.
Application - These are issues with the application itself.
Technology - These are issues with the technology chosen for the application.
Below are the common project management mistakes relating to Project Management:
Formalize Requirements Gathering - Too often, requirements are scribbled on a napkin -or- communicated via phone calls. The best approach to requirements gathering is to hold Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions. JAD sessions are a set of intense meetings held off-site where executives, developers, and end-users define the exact requirements needed by a software solution. By holding JAD sessions, your team can more quickly define requirements, get executive buy-in, eliminate irrelevant requirements and reduce political jockeying between team members.
Lack of Design - Before projects can be estimated, they must be designed. Many teams by pass this step, estimating the efforts without detailed knowledge of what is needed to deliver each requirement.
Poor Estimating - Another common mistake is to poorly estimate projects. This is done by inexperienced project managers that do not account for all tasks that need to be done or by project managers that succumb to management pressures to get the project timeline to fit a predetermined estimate.
Lack of Change Control - Change control is the process of managing changes as to ensure that decisions are not made hastily and that the decision to add an additional feature is in the best interest of the project. If change control is missing from a project, new features will be introduced at random, jeopardizing the delivery date and quality of the software being developed.
Lack of Risk Management - 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.
Poor Project Communication - Studies have shown that software teams that consistently deliver on-time and on-budget communicate in an effective manner. These teams stay in contact constantly, but wisely use each other's time during the communication process and are careful not to waste other people's time.
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| Project Tracking & Communication |
| The ability to track and maintain the status of a project is highly important. This can come in handy not only for internal purposes but for informing customers of any and all progress made.
Project tracking should be done online. All phases of the Software Lifecycle should be managed online, preferably via the web. This includes managing of requirements, tasks, issues, defects, test cases. sharing knowledge with discussion forums and your document repository. There are many software packages to help you with this, here is an example.
Project tracking is everyone's responsibility. This goes hand in hand with communication. Many software projects fail to deliver on-time and on-budget and a factor in that is normally inefficient project communication. Studies have shown that software teams that consistently deliver on-time and on-budget communicate in an effective manner. These teams stay in contact constantly, but wisely use each other's time during the communication process and are careful not to waste other people's time.
Below are some tips for enhancing project communication when working in software development projects:
Set up an online repository for documentation - For effective communication, all your project documents should be online, up-to-date, and available at everyone's finger tips. This includes requirement documents, detailed designs, test plans, project plans, status reports, user acceptance plans, post mortem documents, etc. Having all of these documents at everyone's disposal ensures that everyone is working on the same set of deliverables. Example
Specify Clear Roles and Responsibilities - For effective communication, everyone on the team should know what their role is and what they are accountable for. Each role should be documented during the initial phases of the project and every team member should sign off on their responsibilities. Post these in your online documentation repository.
Monitor Employee Performance - Each employee should have defined goals and should be measured against their goals monthly or quarterly (depending on project duration). Goals should be specific, measurable and achievable. Progress to goals should be based on objective measurement.
Progress Reports - Progress reports should be created weekly. This can be as informal as creating a weekly status report for management review or as formal as creating reports using a project planning tool. Consider using a tool for this, some good ones are Software Planner and Microsoft Project.
Make Decisions based on Facts - All decisions should be objective and should not be self-serving. Decisions should be based on facts, performance and in the spirit of improving overall team performance.
Be Careful of People's Time - It is good to have periodic meetings, but the presence of solid project tracking tools eliminates many of the long-winded meetings that teams have. Team members are most productive when they know their roles, responsibilities and have a way of showing progress online. This can greatly reduce the number of face-to-face meetings that are needed.
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| Requirements Engineering Journal |
| The scope of the journal is to provide a focus for disseminating new results about the elicitation, representation and validation of requirements of software-intensive information systems or applications. Theoretical and applied submissions are welcome, but all submissions should address (i) the practical consequences of the ideas for the design of complex systems, and (ii) how the ideas should be evaluated by the reflective practitioner. |
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| Sapientia: Change Management eNewsletter |
| Sapientia is a free, monthly eNewsletter that delivers valuable information and news directly to your Inbox. We deliver content on People, Process, and Technology to help you succeed in business. We also include a dose of humor in our Off Topic section to help relieve stress. |
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| Sarbanes-Oxley is an IT Responsibility and Business Opportunity |
| Article published in DM Review Magazine -
December 2004 By Randy Brasche
How did this newly minted legislation work its way from the confines of the boardroom into the trenches of the
data center?
Several months ago, you thought that Sarbanes-Oxley was something that CEOs and CFOs had to worry about to keep themselves from cooking the books and going to jail. Think again.
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| SCM from MKS |
| Anyway, one company we may have overlooked somewhat of late is MKS. It competes with many of our favourite companies such as IBM/Rational, Serena/Merant, Borland, and Telelogic and what attracted me to its pitch is its claim that its "unique strength is that compliance is a by-product of our solution, not the end goal..."
I like that. Compliance isn't an end in itself, as David Piper of Select BS pointed out in a recent seminar: it's all really in pursuit of "better, faster, cheaper" - if you want the CFO to pay for it. If you do things properly (which means, if you have a good managed process) compliance simply falls out. If you don't, ad hoc compliance may satisfy the regulators for now, but every time something changes, you have to revisit compliance everywhere, just in case it is affected - which makes change expensive.
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| SCM Tools Offer Compliance Help |
| Companies that used manual tracking techniques in 2004 to meet initial Sarbanes-Oxley compliance deadlines are now ripe for considering tools to automate compliance tracking, according to analysts and industry watchers.
For those companies that are ready to automate at least some processes, tools that fall under the ever-expanding label of software change and configuration management can help.
According to IDC research analyst Melissa Webster... |
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| SCM Uplifted: Q&A with David Martin of MKS Inc. |
| Software configuration management (SCM) is about to emerge from the shadows cast by supercool, hyperbole-laden IDEs. At Gartner's AD Summit, ADT's Jack Vaughan asked MKS' David Martin, VP of product management, what to expect as SCM goes mainstream. |
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| Software configuration management shop talk |
| SCM consultant Michael Sayko offers advice on choosing a software configuration management tool.
Part of the latest ADT Magazine feature on SCM by Linda Briggs |
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| Software Configuration Management Survival Guide |
Paul Conte - ePro Magazine Jan 2004
In the short run, "cowboy coding" can be a lot of fun and deliver impressive results. In the long run, however, talent and heroics aren't enough to reliably deliver and support most software applications. Some basic practices, collectively called Software Configuration Management (SCM), are essential to successful software development. If you're not sure what SCM is, how well you're already practicing SCM, or how it might help, read on. |
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| Software Configuration Management Undergoes a Restoration |
| The company used IBM’s ClearCase, which is currently the SCM industry’s market leader, according to Duggan, although he senses market leadership could change as challengers such as MKS, Serena and Telelogic bolster their products. “ClearCase has played the Cadillac card for years, but if you look closely at the technology, there are others who are at the same price or even less expensive and are more capable,” Duggan says. |
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| Software Configuration Management: New Tools to Streamline Development |
| The latest feature article on SCM by ADT Magazine discusses the following challenges and much more...
Globally managing software
For global companies with branches around the world, one of the challenges of managing software development is this: To produce company-wide solutions that are developed and managed as a single software package, but need slight tailoring by local subsidiaries to reflect a different currency, for example.
Add to that the difficulties of managing thousands of developers across more than 50 countries, with many languages and time zones. That’s the challenge facing one of the world’s largest banks, which recently moved to MKS’ Integrity Solution suite as its company-wide standard for distributed software change and process management.
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| Software Development Lifecycle |
| Iterative Development Model
The traditional methodology for delivering software projects has been, for years, the "Waterfall Method". If project requirements are static or have been clearly stated from the beginning, then this method is useful. Typically, the software development lifecycle (SDLC) exceeds one year which leads to risks of the project being cancelled (according to the Standish Group, about 31% are cancelled before completion).
An alternative approach is the Iterative Development Life Cycle (sometimes referred to as the Spiral Life Cycle).
With the Iterative Life Cycle, analysis is done just the same as with the less frequently used Waterfall method. However, once analysis is done, each requirement is prioritized as follows:
High - These are mission critical requirements that absolutely have to be done in the first release.
Medium - These are requirements that are important but can be worked around until implemented.
Low - These are requirements that are nice-to-have but not critical to the operation of the software.
Once priorities have been established, the releases are planned. The first release (Release 1.0) will contain just the High priority items and should take about 1 to 3 months to deliver.
Below are the advantages of the Iterative Life Cycle:
The Design phase goes much faster, as designs are only done on the items in the current release (Release 1.0 for example).
Coding and Testing go much faster because there are less items to code and test. If major design flaws are found, re-work is much faster since the functional areas have been greatly reduced.
The client gets into production in less than 3 months, allowing them to begin earning revenue or reducing expenses quicker with their product.
If market conditions change for the client, changes can be incorporated in the next iterative release, allowing the software to be much more nimble.
As the software is implemented, the client can make recommendations for the next iteration due to experiences learned in the past iteration.
Our experience has found that you should space iterations at least 2 – 3 months a part. If iterations are closer than that, you spend too much time on convergence and the project timeframe expands. During the coding phase, code reviews must be done weekly to ensure that the developers are delivering to specification and all source code is put under source control. Also, full installation routines are to be used for each iterative release as it would be done in production.
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| Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) - Defect and Test Case Measurement |
| This article discusses software development best practices. It focuses on how to review a software project upon moving it to production (post-mortem phase), allowing the team to learn from things that went well and did not go well. This should be a practical resource for software developers and project managers. |
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| Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) - Overall Project Measurement |
| This article discusses the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), specifically on measuring the effectiveness of your software projects, and for measuring estimated hours and costs with actual hours and costs.
The article focuses on determining how well your project was estimated, establishing allowable variances, and whether the project was completed on-time and on-budget.
The article also has links to valuable templates that allow you to get started using these best practice techniques. This is a practical resource for software developers and project managers. Article: http://www.pragmaticsoftware.com/Newsletters/newsletter_2006_03_SP_NoAd.htm |
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| Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) - Support Management |
| This article discusses the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), specifically on providing better Support Management.
The article focuses on setting up a support ticket manager, collecting and analyzing metrics for defects and support tickets, and whether your software project's quality is improving over time.
The article also has links to valuable templates that allow you to get started using these best practice techniques. This is a practical resource for software developers and project managers. Article: http://www.pragmaticsoftware.com/Newsletters/newsletter_2006_04_SP_NoAd.htm |
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| Software Quality Assurance |
| Software Quality Assurance is a process designed to ensure that software is developed that meets the original customer requirements and has high quality upon delivery to production. Why does software have bugs?
Miscommunication or NO Communication - For high quality, you must first know the specifics of what an application should or shouldn't do (the application's requirements). Click here to see how Defect Tracker or Software Planner can help with requirements.
Software Complexity - The complexity of current software applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development. Windows-type interfaces, client-server and distributed applications, data communications, enormous relational databases, and sheer size of applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity. And the use of object-oriented techniques can complicate instead of simplify a project unless it is well-engineered.
Programming Errors - Programmers, like anyone else, can make mistakes. It is important to fully test all requirements and to have a defect tracking solution that allows programmers to fix defects that are found by the quality assurance team. Click here to see how Defect Tracker or Software Planner can help with managing test cases and here to see how it allows quality assurance teams to track defects and manage software quality assurance.
Changing requirements (whether documented or undocumented) - The customer may not understand the effects of changes, or may understand and request them anyway - redesign, rescheduling of engineers, effects on other projects, work already completed that may have to be redone or thrown out, hardware requirements that may be affected, etc. If there are many minor changes or any major changes, known and unknown dependencies among parts of the project are likely to interact and cause problems, and the complexity of coordinating changes may result in errors. Enthusiasm of engineering staff may be affected. In some fast-changing business environments, continuously modified requirements may be a fact of life. In this case, management must understand the resulting risks, and QA and test engineers must adapt and plan for continuous extensive testing to keep the inevitable bugs from running out of control. Click here to see how Defect Tracker or Software Planner can help with requirements management.
Time Pressures - Scheduling of software projects is difficult at best, often requiring a lot of guesswork. When deadlines loom and the crunch comes, mistakes will be made. Click here to see how Software Planner can help with Project Tasks |
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| Software Testing Tools |
| Topic: Software Testing Tools
For more quality assurance teams, a common question is whether to use automated or manual testing for their software development efforts, and to determine what software testing tools are available.
For small projects, manual testing can be more efficient than automated testing because there is no need to create involved automated testing scripts. For large projects, a combination of both automated and manual testing is a good approach.
Consider using automated test scripts for regression testing, as this can speed regression testing up considerably. There are many automated testing tools available, Eggplant is a reasonably priced solution.
Teams will also perform manual testing, as it is a necessary component for quality testing. With manual testing, it is imperative to ensure you have good testing coverage for all your customer requirements. So being able to link test cases to customer requirements is a very nice feature from a software testing tool, as it provides traceability.
Good software testing tools also have the ability to track test cases online, assign them to testers, and allow them to pass or fail the test cases. Auditing of the times a test case has run is a plus. Some vendors that offer this level of test case management: Defect Tracker Software Planner
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| The Case for Code Quality Management: Empowering development managers to continuously improve applic |
| For managers who are overseeing Java™ development teams, maintaining consistent coding standards and practices is a monumental challenge. Missed deadlines, reports of problems in the field and constant bug fixes are all symptoms of poor coding standards and practices. Fortunately, comprehensive code quality management applications are emerging that bring proven process standards to the development cycle, enabling managers to enforce code quality and track issues back to specific developers. By enforcing quality standards, problems can be proactively identified before applications are released, dramatically simplifying the development manager’s job. This paper will examine the challenges faced by development managers and introduce how code quality management solutions that employ code Precision Team ManagementSM bring needed order to Java development teams. |
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| The Change-Management Challenge |
| Integrating new applications with legacy code—the type of software found on mainframes as well as other older platforms—adds new layers of complication to the job of change management and version control. |
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| The CMS Report |
The CMS Report is an objective, in-depth analysis of web content management. The report helps clear through the clutter to provide a detailed overview of the web content management space, including:
- How to identify a content management problem
- Making a business case for content management
- The web content lifecycle
- Content management product comparisons
- Pitfalls and best practices
The report includes information and comparative data on the most popular web content management products on the market today. Written by industry expert Tony Byrne, the report provides a plain-English evaluation of CM packages in order to help you select the solution that best meets your company's needs. |
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| The High Cost of Sarbanes-Oxley |
| The numbers, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, indicate that for many companies Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is drawing attention to major shortcomings in their business information processes – not to mention major weakness in their corporate reporting. As a result, industry experts agree that Sarbanes-Oxley is more than just a response to calls for improved corporate governance. It’s a much-needed push to get public firms to understand how their IT infrastructure impacts their overall business. |
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| The push for process heats up - SCM feature from ADT Magazine |
| As change and configuration management offerings move up the food chain, SCM tools are slowly being re-categorized into the broader bin of change management products. Along the way, the tools start to gain and finally may enforce specific processes for development. This is a trend not without controversy, and the many makers of SCM tools are not bashful about stating their positions on the SCM evolution. |
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| The Source - An MKS Newsletter |
| Get news about MKS SCM/Change Management activities, and receive updates about events, white papers, and trends in the SCM industry. The Source is a free MKS newsletter created and distributed electronically on a monthly basis. Subscribe now! |
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| Thought for the Day: Merger or Murder? |
| After the upheaval of a merger, it's easy for quality to get slaughtered. Linda Newsom-Ray, MKS Inc., offers some pointers for effective initiatives. |
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| Use Cases and Implementing Application Lifecycle Management Systems |
| This article shows how ULM use cases can help when eliciting requirements, documenting and planning the implementation of an ALM system. |
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| Web Project Reports |
| Useful Tools for this White Paper
Software Planner - Use for tracking all phases of the software life cycle including customer requirements, defects, and test cases, fully web-based. Free 2 Week Trial
Remoteus - Use for remote desktop sharing, allows support teams to remotely connect to client PC's. Free 2 Week Trial
Web Information Center - Use for Enterprise reporting, allows distributing of Crystal Reports and Pivot tables via the web.
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Topic: Web Project Reports
Concise communication is an essential key to any project. This is especially important during the process of the software life cycle. But this cannot be properly done without being fully up-to-date on all aspect of a project. Creating project reports via the web is a great way to ensure that everyone is on the same page and also benefits the team by stepping back and analyzing how the project is progressing.
The key to great communication is to collaborate with team members each day and to create weekly status reports to summarize your progress and to identify issues that need resolution. Web project reports can even be e-mailed so the everyone is assured instant updates. Below are a list of tips for making weekly status reports meaningful:
Use the Red/Yellow/Green Metaphor - Status reports are designed to show accomplishments and to identify areas that need attention. Using a Red/Yellow/Green metaphor is a great way to separate those areas of the status report:
Red - List critical issues that are keeping you from delivering on schedule and on budget. These items need management help in resolving. Example: You can not begin testing because management has not approved the purchase of your test server.
Yellow - List issues that management should be aware of but do not keep you from delivering on schedule and under budget. These items may not need management help in resolving. Example: Your testing team is running 2 days behind schedule, but the testing team has agreed to work the weekend to catch up.
Green - List accomplishments or progress made on deliverables for the week. Example: Provide a bulleted list of deliverables that should have been achieved this week, along with their status.
Identify Week's Priorities - Identify next weeks tasks and priorities so that everyone knows what things are expected of them in the upcoming week. Different teams also use that to ensure that any tasks that are dependent on them are all in alignment as to be ready for those deliverables to be worked on.
Provide Metrics - Providing metrics allow your team to step back and see things in the bigger picture. Typical metrics should include defect metrics (like number of defects by status/severity/priority, etc) and test case metrics (number of test cases run/passed/failed, etc). It could also include metrics regarding deliverables and your risk management efforts.
Discussion Forums - Create a discussion forum for your team members. Post the weekly status reports in the discussion forum so that they are automatically distributed via email and a history is kept of each weekly status.
Template - We have created a template we use for the weekly status report. To download a copy click here.
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| What Is Agile Software Development? |
Cover article in CrossTalk magazine, October 2002 by Jim Highsmith
In the past two years, the ideas of ?agile software development,? which encompasses individual methodologies such as Crystal
methods, eXtreme Programming, feature-driven development, and adaptive software development, are being increasingly applied and are causing considerable debate. This article attempts to answer the fundamental question on many people?s minds: What is agile software development? |
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| When Telepathy Won’t Do: |
| The software industry is exhibiting an increasing interest in requirements engineering — that is, understanding what you intend to build before you’re done building it. Despite the hype of "Internet time," companies across many business domains realize that time spent understanding the business problem is an excellent investment. Clients have told me they’re getting serious about requirements because the pain of having built poor products has simply become too great. |
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| Why Commercial SCM Tools Are Better Than Open-Source Tools |
| Your organization has a core competency that has a direct bearing on your competitive advantage. The more of your time you can spend leveraging your core competency—whether it is financial transactions, network protocols or something else—the more you can enhance your competitive advantage. Therefore, it makes sense to delegate as much unrelated work as possible.
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| Writing Quality Requirements |
| It looks like your project is off to a good start. The team got some customers involved in the requirements elicitation stage and you actually wrote a software requirements specification. The spec was kind of big, but the customers signed off on it so it must be okay. |
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| Wyly says CA is suing him to stop takeover bid |
| By STACY COWLEY, IDG NEWS SERVICE (June 29, 2001)
Sam Wyly, the Computer Associates International Inc. shareholder who's launching a proxy fight in hopes of taking over the company, announced in a conference call Friday that CA has filed suit against him to stop his takeover bid. |
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| You Want To Change What? |
| Need to give your Web site the reliability of a mainframe? Then standardize and automate your change-management processes.
By ROBERT L. SCHEIER - (March 12, 2001) Steve Etzell saw for himself how quickly a minor unauthorized change can foul up a Web site. |
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