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Chapter 6: Planning for Software Quality 133 Referring to the project scope The project scope defines all of the work (and only the required work) to create the project deliverable. The project scope defines what will and won t be included in the project deliverable. Project scope is different than the product scope, because the product scope describes only the finished deliverable, whereas the project scope describes the work and activities needed to reach the deliverable. You really have to put the project scope in writing, and have it signed by the project manager and the project sponsor. For some projects, such as internal projects, other stakeholders may also need to sign off on the project scope. For projects that are completed for customers outside of the organization, the project scope is written in a statement of work (SOW), and included in the contract details. You must define the project scope so that you can use it as an appropriate quality tool. The project scope draws a line in the sand when it comes to project changes. Changes, as we re sure you ve experienced, can trickle into the project and cause problems with quality. Even the most innocent changes can bloom into monsters that wreck your project. Figure 6-1 shows the project manager s approach to project changes and quality. Early in the project, during the initiation and planning stages, you can safely entertain changes to the project. After you create the project scope, however, your rule when it comes to changes should be Just say no! Project managerInfluen Project Timeline Figure 6-1: Stakeholder influence wanes as the project Stakeholder moves towards completion. Changes to the project may affect the quality of the product. This isn t to say that changes should come into a project at all far from it. But changes to the project must be examined, weighed, and considered for the affect on time, cost, and impact on project quality.
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132 Part II: Planning Your Software Project What managers say: The customer is happy and the project delivers on time and on budget. What you may say: The project team completes its work according to its estimates, the customer is happy, and management is happy with the final costs and schedule. Quality, for everyone concerned, is the ability of the project and the project s deliverable to satisfy the stated and implied requirements. Quality is all of the items we mention here, but it s more than just the deliverable; it s following a process, meeting specified requirements, and performing to create the best possible deliverable. Everything, from the project kickoff meeting to the final testing, affects the project quality. Referring to the product scope As the project manager, your primary concern is satisfying the product scope. The product scope is the description of the software the customer expects from your project. If you work primarily to satisfy the product scope, then you ll be in good shape with satisfying the customer s expectations for quality. But, in order to satisfy the product scope you must first have several documents: Product scope description document. This document defines what the customer expects from the project. What are the characteristics of the software? This description becomes more complete as you progress through the project and gather more knowledge. Project requirements document. This document defines exactly what the project must create without being deemed a failure. What types of functionality should stakeholders be able to perform with the software? This document prioritizes the stakeholders requirements. Detailed design document. This document specifies how the project team will create units that meet the project requirements, which in turn will satisfy the product scope. Metrics for acceptability. Many software projects need metrics for acceptability. These metrics include speeds, data accuracy, and metrics from user acceptability tests. You ll need to avoid vague metrics, such as good and fast. Instead, aim to define accurate numbers and determine how the values will be captured. Satisfying the product scope will assure that the customer is happy with you and with deliverables the project team has created. You will only satisfy the product scope if you plan how to do it. Quality is no accident.
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Chapter 6 Planning for Software Quality In This Chapter Defining quality in software projects Working with your organization s quality policy Creating a quality management plan Identifying how changes in time and cost will affect project quality When it comes to quality, you ve probably heard some great clich s: Quality is planned into a project, not added through inspection (you should spend your time in planning quality instead of inspecting after you have errors). It s always cheaper (and more efficient) to do a job right the first time around. Why is there always time to do work right the second time? Always underpromise and overdeliver. These sure are some catchy slogans, and clich s become clich s because they re usually accurate. In this chapter we explore what quality is, how to plan it into your project, and how to create a quality management plan. Defining Quality Before you can plan for quality, you must first define what quality is. Ask your customers, your project team, your management team, and even yourself what quality is and you get a variety of answers: What customers say: The software you create lives up to expectations, is reliable, and does some incredible things the customer doesn t expect (or even think of). What your project team says: The work is completed as planned and as expected, with few errors and fewer surprises.
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130 Part II: Planning Your Software Project If the team passes through the threshold without meeting the requirements, the trigger is squeezed and consultants come aboard to help finish the project. Handling the ripple effect of risk response Any response to a risk can create other problems: schedule delays, a dip in team morale, an increase in cost, and more. Acknowledging the domino effect that risk responses can have on a project is important if you want to be realistic in your project management role. There are two key risks that come from risk responses that should be examined with every risk response: Residual risks: Residual risks are usually tiny risks that linger after a risk response. These are generally accepted and the project moves forward. For example, if you switch gears and bring in consultants to help meet your final deadline, responsibilities within your project team might shift. You may lose a day as your programmers adjust to their new roles. This residual risk is not as big a deal as possibly missing your final deadline, so it s one you can accept and live with. Secondary risks: Secondary risks are more serious. They occur when a risk response creates significant new project risks. For example, say you hire a company to help complete the project work. A secondary risk could be that the company you ve hired doesn t complete the project on time. Each secondary risk should be analyzed and a risk response should be planned for the risk event. You can begin to see why risk management is an iterative and ongoing process! Getting to say, I told you so! Your best friend when it comes to risk identification is documentation. If you fail to document a risk, then the risk never existed at least as far as your management team is concerned. Risk documentation is vital for project success. Each risk should be documented as part of qualitative risk analysis and then periodically revisited to see whether the initial risk analysis was flawed. Some organizations create a risk management database to enter all of the identified risks along with their risk scores, impacts, and probability ratings. As the project moves forward, you can use the risk database to view risks that are pending, have passed, or that may have come to fruition. Risk management is an important phase of your project planning and deserves the time and analysis of you and your project team. To find out more about this ever growing field, read Project Manager s Spotlight on Risk Management by Kim Heldman (Wiley).
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Chapter 5: Planning for Software Project Risks 129 Developed and tested prototypes, used user acceptability testing processes, or launched pilot groups within your organization before releasing the software Accepting the risks When you accept certain risks, either the risks are so low that the project can live with them, or the risks are inevitable but the project must move forward anyway. Sometimes you just know that you can t prevent an identified risk, you just suck it up, work towards a solution, and deal with it. Here s an example of risk acceptance. Say you re working with a non-collocated team and you ll be doing lots of traveling between sites to manage and lead the project team. A risk that you have to accept, like it or not, is weather. Weather delays could affect the project and you have very little response to weather delays other than communicating electronically. Usually, risk acceptance is for the smaller, puny risks that have a very low probability, a very low impact, or both. However, any risk you do not identify, you automatically accept! Examining Risk Responses and Impacts Have you ever made one small change to your software development plan and watched, aghast, as the change mushroomed into a huge issue that delayed your project for weeks? The same thing can happen with your risk response plan. Before a risk response is implemented, the project manager and the project team need to examine the full effect of the response. The project team and the project manager should determine when the risk response should be implemented. Two terms here to recognize are Risk threshold: The line of demarcation that signals that a risk is about to come into play and that some response should happen. The risk threshold can be a date for completion, a percentage of the work that is not complete, a failed test, or any other event that signals a pending risk. Risk trigger: A trigger is an event within the project that triggers a pre- planned response to the identified risk. Thresholds and triggers often work together. For example, you may decide that if the project is not 50 percent complete by March 1 then you risk missing the final deadline. To reduce this risk, you plan to hire consultants to help finish the project if that March 1 deadline isn t met. The threshold is the requirement for March 1, and the trigger is whether or not the project is 50 percent complete.
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128 Part II: Planning Your Software Project Transferring risks Have you ever just wanted to get someone else to do a portion of a project because the technology involved was too complex, you were unfamiliar with a new programming language, or you feared that the impact of the project on your organization, if the project failed, would be too great? Probably so. If you ever went forward with the procurement process and hired a consultant to do the project for you, or even farmed out a risky portion of a project, you ve completed transference. Transference means that the risk doesn t go away. It s just someone else s responsibility now. You ve used transference if you ve ever done any of the following: Purchased insurance, such as errors and omissions insurance Hired experts to complete a portion of the project work Demanded warranties from vendors Brought in consultants to test units and builds of your software Be aware that the risk has not disappeared; you have just transferred it. In fact, if the vendor doesn t deliver on time, you still absorb the impact. Transferring risks introduces a whole new set of risks that you and your team must identify, analyze, and respond to. Mitigating risks Risk mitigation is about reducing the impact and/or the probability of risk. Remember qualitative and quantitative risk analyses? (If not, read some of the earlier sections in this chapter.) When you implement risk mitigation strategies, you typically examine the risks with medium to high scores for risk mitigation opportunities. In other words, you attempt to answer questions like, How can the impact, the probability, or both be reduced to a level that we can live with? Ideally, you d like to reduce both the impact and the likelihood of a risk occurring, but often when you re mitigating risk you choose to mitigate either one or the other usually you suck it up and accept the lesser of two evils. You ve used mitigation if you ve ever done the following: Added extra testing, verification, or customer approval activities to ensure that the software conforms to requirements Reduced the number of processes, activities, or interactions within a smaller project to streamline and focus project management activities on accomplishing specific project tasks
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Chapter 5: Planning for Software Project Risks 127 High Moderate Figure 5-7: Your risk response plan helps Low you see that not all risks need to be eliminated. Low Moderate High Accept Mitigate Eliminate Risk to Project Success rojeriority The risk response plan is a document that details the identified risks within a project, their impact, and their associated costs, and then identifies how the project team will respond to the risks. In addition, the risk response plan nods to the process of risk management. Risk identification, the first step of risk management, is an iterative process that happens throughout the project not just at the beginning. Avoiding risks Often the most desirable risk response is to just avoid the risk. This means getting creative in the project scheduling, assigning senior developers to key activities, or creating other workarounds so that the risk doesn t come into play. You ve done risk avoidance if you ve done any of the following: Changed a project plan to avoid risk interruption Used an established approach to software development rather than a newfangled model Hired experts to consult the project team during the development process Spent additional time with the project stakeholders to clarify all project objectives and requirements
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126 Part II: Planning Your Software Project 3. Start sprinting. Sprints are short, iterative bursts of software development. The result of a sprint is to reach a milestone within the project. Sprints typically last from one to four weeks. Multiple development teams may work simultaneously within the project, each working on their own sprints. Each sprint includes the following features: Development. The work packet is initiated. The development team completes the analysis, design, implementation, testing, and documentation. Wrap. The packet is wrapped. In other words, the work packet is closed. The code is verified as operational, and documentation of the work is created. Review. The project team reviews the work, points out and resolves issues, and adds items to the backlog for future resolutions. Risk is reviewed and mitigation efforts are introduced. Adjustment. The results of the review process are documented and, if necessary, compiled into work packets. 4. Close out the project. During the closure phase, the project results are tested and deemed accurate. The software is then prepped for release. The scrum model is ideal for software development because of its rapid acceptance of changes and adaptability to issues within the development process. However, scrum requires managers and project stakeholders to respect all of the rules of scrum for it to be successful. Preparing a Risk Response Plan Every project, regardless of the software development model you use, has project risks. As the expert project manager, you (along with your project team) surely have identified the project risks, used quantitative and qualitative risk analyses, and scored and ranked your risks. But is this enough? Of course not. Typically you, the project team, and the project stakeholders do an initial qualitative risk analysis. That s the listing and ranking of your project risks. Figure 5-7 shows the scale of the risks you can usually live with, the risks with impacts you want to reduce, and the risks you want to work to eliminate. The risk response plan helps you come to these decisions.
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Chapter 5: Planning for Software Project Risks 125 Figure 5-6: Scrum relies on sprints for bursts of software development. Closure As in rugby, the scrum development model has lots of rules that the project team and the project manager must live by. The first key rule in scrum is to never interrupt the programmers while they re working. The second crucial rule is that everyone must follow the same process for work prioritization. In addition, scrum depends on solid communication, collocated teams, and quick, accurate team meetings. Here s how it works: 1. Set up a plan. In the planning phase, the project team plans how to reach the project objectives. This phase includes prioritizing and making time and cost estimates, and focuses on detailing the software s functions. 2. Design the architecture. In the architecture design phase, the team designs the software functions, breaks down the functions into units, and defines any additional features or components.
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124 Part II: Planning Your Software Project 3. Elaborate on the architecture with a detailed design. In the detailed design phase, the software s design phase is broken down further and designed, and a detailed design document is created. The detailed design document maps to the project requirements and specifies how the software will be created. 4. Implement the code. In the implementation phase, the code is implemented according to the detailed design document. 5. Test individual units. In order for the project to move forward, units are tested to confirm that the software works as described in the detailed design document. This is called the unit test phase. If the project passes the tests, the project moves forward. If not, the problems must be corrected and passed through the tests again. 6. Test how everything works together. In the integration test phase, you confirm that the software operates as the project stakeholders defined it (see Step 1). 7. Test the whole system. In the system test phase, compile the software and test the system as a whole. Successful testing of this phase allows the system to be released. Can you guess this model s weakness? If you said that the requirements are very specific, you win. This model must have exact requirements from the project stakeholders, specifically the project customer, from the outset. If the requirements are not well defined at the beginning of the project, then there ll be trouble as the project moves to completion. All of the builds and testing are founded on the early requirements of the project launch. In addition, if changes are introduced into the project at any point, the project may have to move backward, integrate the changes, and go through appropriate testing before the project may move forward. Using the scrum development model If you ve ever played rugby (and really, who hasn t?) you know that scrum means huddle up and get an out-of-play ball back into play so the teams can hurry up and bash each others noggins. Scrum, in software development, means working in quick iterations, building team empowerment, and being adaptable. Figure 5-6 illustrates what the scrum model looks like.
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