Software Project Management Framework

Software Project Management framework encompasses knowledge, techniques and tools necessary to manage the development of software products. Following are the key tasks involved in or covered under the software project management framework.

Business Case Analysis

The objective of this analysis phase is to identify the investment and returns involved with the project. Here the investors conduct a business case analysis identifying the requirements and estimating time, cost etc. of the information management project based on analysed assumptions, risks and alternative solutions. It also identifies the projected return on the investment. The business owner and the IT sponsor should approve this business case before proceeding further.

Planning & Analysis

Software planning lays the foundation on which the development team builds the project. This phase produces the following important deliverables.

• Data requirements.
• Management Plan.
• Configuration Management. (Change Management)
• Quality Assurance Plan

This Business owner and IT sponsor should approve the above plans before moving to the next phase.

Architecture & Design

The objective of this phase is to define the architecture for the entire business solution. It will include:

• Database Architecture.
• Database Sizing and performance expectations.
• Hardware configurations and sizing recommendations.
• Access control, backup and recovery guidelines.

Build & Test

In this phase, the code required for the software project is developed. The objective of this phase is to deliver:

• Code for the source system, programs to load the data from the database and datawarehouse, programs and scripts for ensuring access control, backup and recovery.
• It also includes a query manager to support business intelligence requirements along with some pre developed queries and reports.

The build and test phase reduces the risk of solution defects and high rework costs.

User Acceptance

This phase ensures that the information management solution meets the agreed requirements.

Release

Here the final product is released. The initial data should be preloaded and the data warehouse should be turned for performance if necessary.