Develop a software development project plan

I. Elements of the Project Plan
According to pmbok2000, the Project Plan can contain the following elements:
1. Project Scope description
Describe the reason or significance of the project to form the basic framework of the project, enables the project owner or project manager to systematically and logically analyze key issues of the project and the Interaction elements in the project formation, so that the project stakeholders can complete the project before the project begins implementation or before the project-related documents are compiled, can reach an agreement on the basic content and structure of the project. The project scope description should form a project result checklist, which serves as the basis for project evaluation and should be evaluated after the project is terminated or before the project final report is completed, this serves as the basis for evaluating the success or failure of the project. The scope description can also serve as the basis for monitoring and assessing the implementation of the project throughout the project lifecycle, and as well as the basis for other project-related plans.
2. project progress plan
A schedule is a plan that describes the sequence, start time, completion time, and dependency of various projects. Through the preparation of the progress plan, the project implementation forms an organic whole. A progress plan is the basis for progress control and management. It can be divided into a project progress control plan and a project status report plan.
In the progress control plan, you should determine which jobs should be monitored, when to supervise, who is the supervisor, and how to collect and process project progress information, how to check work progress and adjustment measures on time, and include the time and personnel, technology and material resources required for such control work in the Project Master Plan.
3. Project Quality Plan
For specific projects to be determined, the quality plan arranges quality monitoring personnel and relevant resources, and specifies the systems, specifications, procedures, and standards to be used. The project quality plan should include all the activities related to project quality assurance. The purpose of the quality plan is to ensure that the quality objectives of the project are met. In accordance with ISO9001 requirements and pmbok2000, to achieve quality objectives, the Organization shall follow eight quality management measures, including customer-centric, leadership, full participation, process methods, management system methods, continuous improvement, fact-based decision-making methods, and mutually beneficial supplier relationship. principles.
4. Project Resource plan
With the scope and progress of the project, the resource plan is to determine the resources (people, materials, equipment, information, funds, etc.) used in each task of the project ), the number of resources used in each stage. The project cost plan includes the resource plan, cost estimation, and cost budget.
5. Project Communication Plan
A communication plan is an agreement that defines the content, personnel scope, communication mode, communication time, frequency, and other communication requirements of project stakeholders during the project process.
6. Risk countermeasure plan
The risk countermeasure plan is a process of analyzing risks and formulating risk response policies to reduce the damage caused by project risks, including identifying risks, quantifying risks, and preparing risk response policy plans.
7. Project Procurement Plan
The project procurement planning process is to identify which project requirements should be met by purchasing products or equipment from outside the enterprise. For the procurement of software development work, that is, outsourcing, plans for outsourcing progress monitoring and quality control should be developed at the same time.
8. Change Control and Configuration Management Plan
The project plan cannot guarantee accurate prediction at the beginning, and cannot guarantee accurate and powerful control during the project process. As a result, the project plan is often different from the actual project situation, therefore, Project changes must be effectively handled. The Change Control Plan mainly defines the steps and procedures of changes. The configuration management plan is to determine the configuration items and baseline of the project, control the changes of the configuration items, and maintain the integrity of the baseline, provide the project stakeholders with the correct status and current configuration data of the configuration item.
Ii. project plan preparation process
Because of the manual and individual features of software development, a software development project plan cannot be a static plan. When a project is started, a relatively coarse-grained project plan can be developed first, first, determine the project's high-level activities and expected milestones. Coarse-grained project plans need to be updated and iterated continuously, and updated and adjusted based on the project size and nature and the project progress. The iteration and adjustment cycle is also determined based on the project situation. Generally, the cycle is shorter than one week, and the length is about two months. After continuous planning, adjustment, revision, and other work, the project plan has become very detailed from the initial coarse granularity. Such a plan will continue until the end of the project and the results of the project will appear.
The planning process is a process of gradually understanding the project. By carefully preparing the plan, the Project Manager can know which elements are clear and which elements should be clearer, continuously improve the project plan through the progressive details. The work reports included in the phase plan and the work arrangements for the next phase are the basis for mastering the project progress. Only by comparing the phase plan with the overall plan can we clearly see the progress of the work. The planning process is also a process of balancing progress, resources, and scope. The essence of planning is not to write a good-looking document, but to use your wisdom to cope with various problems and risks and to think forward as far as possible. Once the plan is completed responsibly, he can give himself a basis for communication and negotiation with the management layer or the customer to help you prevent various problems during the project process, it helps you ensure that the project is completed on time.
When an enterprise determines that it wants to start a project, it generally issues a Project Initiation Document, which is currently called a Project Initiation Document. The main content of the document is the contract or relevant agreement to comply, the general scope of the project, the end time of the project, and some key time, specify the project manager and some project members.
The preparation of the following project plan generally follows the process below:
1. Set up a project team: if the relevant department receives the approved project documents and related materials, the project manager designated in the project documents organizes the project team, members can join the project team at different times as the project progresses, or withdraw from the project team as the assigned work is completed. However, it is best to participate in the project kickoff meeting at the project startup to understand the overall objectives and plans, especially the responsibilities of the project and the time to join the project.
2. Prepare for project development: the project manager organizes the project team members who have joined in the early stage to prepare the specifications, tools, and environment required for project work. Such as development tools, source code management tools, configuration environment, and database environment. The members of the project team who joined in the early stage are mainly composed of plan managers and system analysts. However, if you want to make a good project plan, you must try to fully communicate with all the project team members and stakeholders. If there are some key technical risks (that will affect the project's success or failure) in the project, the project manager should organize personnel to conduct pre-research at this stage. The pre-study results should be reviewed with written conclusions.
Note: The project plan must precisely define the project objectives, stage objectives, and tasks at the corresponding stage, that is, to further refine the project objectives at the corresponding stage; especially after the outline design is complete, the target tasks of the next stage should be refined before the detailed design or coding implementation starts. All internal and external influencing factors that affect the project plan should be fully investigated and grasped; the project work breakdown structure should be analyzed as much as possible, and the static structure of the project should be obtained by analyzing the project work breakdown structure, in addition, through logical analysis, the dynamic workflow between various project tasks is obtained. The project objectives and tasks should be decomposed and detailed implementation plans should be formulated.
3. Collect project information: the project manager organizes project team members to collect project information as much as possible within the specified time period by analyzing and communicating with users. To collect project information, we must ensure adequate and efficient communication and reach consensus. Some members believe that documents (plans, requirements, weekly plans, etc.) sent by email are completed when the communication is insufficient, it may be a habit for members to understand or disagree with their abilities or intentions, but the efficiency of communication via email or other means is not high, it may be related to whether a specific issue is easily communicated via email. Therefore, important content needs to be discussed in Q & A meetings to ensure that all important issues are understood and a consensus is reached. Consensus reached at the Seminar should be documented in specific documents.
4. Prepare the software project plan
The project manager is responsible for organizing and preparing the software project plan. The software project plan is the core output document of the project planning activities. It includes the subject of the plan and other related plans in the form of attachments, such as configuration management plans. The preparation of the software project plan should refer to the requirements of the project development plan in the GB8567-88 computer software product development document compiling guide. During the establishment of the ISO9001 quality management system or CMM, enterprises will also establish the corresponding "Software Development Project Plan specifications".
The project plan preparation process can be divided into the following steps:
A. Determine the deliverables of the project. The deliverables of the project here refer not only to the final product of the project, but also to the intermediate product of the project. For example, the project products of a software development project can be: requirement specification, summary design specification, detailed design specification, database design specification, project stage plan, project stage report, program maintenance specification, test plan, test report, program code and program file, program installation files, user manuals, acceptance reports, and project summary reports;
B. Task breakdown: Start from the project goal, and break down from top to bottom to determine the work required to achieve the project goal, and draw a complete working breakdown structure. Software development projects can only be divided from the perspective of stages at the beginning, such as requirement analysis, architecture design, coding, and testing, of course, when the scale is large, you can split the requirements and design into different tasks. However, the target tasks in the next stage can be further refined, especially when the outline design is complete.
C. Determine the dependency between tasks on the premise of independent resources to determine the sequence of task start and end time; obtain the dynamic workflow between tasks of the project.
D. determine the time required for each task, that is, the time required for the task based on experience or application of relevant methods; determine the human resources required for each task, such as what technologies, skills, knowledge, experience, and proficiency are required.
E. determine the time that a project team member can take, that is, the exact time each project member spends on the project. determine the role composition, responsibilities, relationships, and communication methods of each project team member.
F. determine the management work. The management work runs through the project lifecycle, such as project management, project meetings, and preparation stage reports. The communication time between project team members, project team members and other project stakeholders is also relatively easy to ignore, and the communication time is also relatively difficult to quantify and schedule. However, these work should be fully taken into account in the plan, and the re-Division project plan should be more reasonable, and the project progress delay caused by the unreasonable plan should be reduced more effectively.
G. Prepare the overall project progress plan based on the above results. The overall progress plan shall reflect the Task Name, owner, start time, End Time, And the checkable work results to be submitted.
H. Consider the cost budget of the project, possible risk analysis and countermeasures, and matters that require coordination or support within the company or by customers or other parties.
5. Software Project Plan Review and approval
Project Plan Review and approval aims to make the relevant personnel reach consensus, reduce unnecessary errors, and make the project plan more reasonable and effective.
After the project manager completes the software project plan, the project team leader, test leader, system analysis leader, design leader, and quality supervisor within the project team are organized to review the project plan, the review may be conducted electronically or in a meeting manner, and the review records within the project team of the phase results can be carried out. All relevant personnel should be asked to give feedback on the proposal within an agreed period after receiving the software project plan. The Project Manager ensures that an agreement is reached with all personnel regarding the content listed in the project plan. This consistency requires all project team members to make a commitment to the content of the project plan, and cannot make a commitment or reach an agreement, or modify the project plan to adapt to certain project team members, or some project team members take compromise measures to adapt to the requirements of the project plan.
The Project Manager submits an agreed software project plan to the project leadership or their authorized personnel for approval. The approval time cannot exceed the pre-agreed time. For important projects, the Process Control Department, such as the Quality Management Department, and the project leader in charge, simultaneously approve the software project plan.
The approved software project plan serves as the basis for project activities and the basis for project control and inspection by the enterprise, and implements planned changes as necessary based on the project progress.
The project quality supervisor prepares the software development project quality plan in accordance with the software project plan and the software development project quality plan specification. A separate quality plan for software development projects should be prepared for large-scale projects. For small projects, the "quality plan for software development projects" can be described in a section in the "Software Project Plan ", A document similar to the "Quality Control table for software development projects" can also be prepared separately.
The configuration administrator prepares the project configuration management plan according to the plan. Based on the stage results in the project work plan, the project manager Prepares the configuration management plan according to the specification of the configuration management plan. The Project Manager approves the Configuration Management Plan and is responsible for the effectiveness of the Configuration Management Plan.
After the project planning is completed, the software project plan is reviewed. Generally, for software development projects, the work is transferred to the requirement analysis stage.