Risk Management - Development
Problem
If you're about to implement an enterprise software application, you know the chance of failure is high. Research firms have found that 30%-70% of major software implementation fail in some important way. Occasionally the whole project collapses, producing million-dollar write-offs. More often, budgets and deadlines are abandoned, key features are chopped away, the rollout is incomplete, and the ROI case goes out of the window.
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Our solution
Solution was proposed by the customer who has a huge experience in consulting and had a clear picture of the software that should solve the described problem.
The main responsibility of our team was to carefully understand customer ideas and incarnate them in the code. To do this we used several practises of XP programming like close interaction with the customer (everyday chats), constant visible progress in the project (everyday versions) and unit based testing.
This approach gave us very good results. Customer was aware of the project progress each day and could make (and was making) the changes immediately unlike the classic program development model where a lot of time is spent for the detailed specifications and then customer can make changes only after seeing the milestone versions (say once a month) and so the cost of fixing the mistake in the initial specification is very high.
Project team:
- Designated Project Manager is working very tight with the customer and the team produces a new version of the software each day for customers review. Priorities for the development day are negotiated during everyday chats between the customer and the project manager. 11 hours time difference allows the customer to do the internal testing and review while developers are sleeping and prepares daily tasks list when they come to work. This saves a lot of time.
- Designated Consultant knows all the aspects of the project. About once two weeks consultant and the customer are talking by phone discussing the future directions of the project flow and solutions to complicated issues that arise.
- Full time VB.NET senior developer is working on this project each day for almost two years.
- Part time PHP developer is working on the backend server part of the application.
- Part time QA manager is doing everyday tests of the versions produced by the development team (daily versions) and also testing weekly and monthly releases. QA manager is working in the constant contact with the development team which lets us avoid misunderstandings and speedup the solving of the issues found.
- From time to time Database Architect, Graphics Designer and System Administrator are used in this project.
Experience we used during the development process:
- XP programing practises
- VB.NET
- PHP/MySQL
Experience we obtained during the development process:
- XP programing practises
- Syncfusion GUI controls
You can learn more about the project on www.asuret.com (Collective Intelligence).
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