Software Project Challenges

• Uncontrolled requirements creep
• Small penalty for lateness/no incentive for early
  (Or are we overly minimizing the penalty for lateness, given the impact on respect & credibility?)
• No call to do any planning
• Can't test some theories without huge investment
• Inadequate testing
• No consensus on what testing is necessary
• Little review of process for improvement
• Increasing complexity of the environment
• Non-existent requirements
• Lack of planning
• Lack of active risk management
• We have to deal with some poorly developed code (legacy code?)
• Missing product management

Back-to-Work Action Plan

By next week
• Revisit this and do a severe sanity check on it - Tony
• Look at SEP-PCH and CxOne charter templates and make CCSM Charter template - Brian
• Look SEP-RAA and CxOne to develop risk & asset process/template - Lawrence
• Draft up charters for CCSM and 5 components - Lawrence to lead, liaisons to do for components
• Discuss in defect tracking configuration agenda: Track defects including when injected, when detected, effort/cost to fix - Lawrence
• Send Earned Value references to Tony - Steve
• Get and read these books on testing: - Lawrence
  • Glenford Myers, The Art of Software Testing, Wiley, 1979
  • Cem Kaner, Jack Faulk, Hung Quoc Nguyen, Testing Computer Software, 2nd Ed., International Thompson Computer Press, 1993
  • Bill Hetzel, The Complete Guide to Software Testing, 2nd Ed., Wiley, 1988
• Send lessons-learned process & template to Tony - steve

By next month
• Make a presentation of all of this to the scientists - Tony
• "Finalize" charters for CCSM and 5 components (should be put under change control) - Jeff
• Update the risks list (look at assets also) (not necessarily under change control) - Lawrence
• Plan (for the software) based on charters, risks, and assets - Tony and Component Liaisons(?)
• Get Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson, Mastering the Requirements Process, Addison-Wesley, 1999. Pay particular attention to Volere Template and the "Fit Criteria" - Tony
• Put in place a change control process - Tony
• Start meetings of the atmosphere "change board" - Jeff
• Put planning checkpoint reviews on Jeff's radar screen (point him to relevant chapter in SPSG, point out that "no go" option is off the table) - Tony
• Have people who do planning read Chapter 7 (Lifecycles) of McConnell's Rapid Development
• Look at CxOne project plan and lite project plan templates, start thinking about your own project plan template - Tony
• Review the last 18 months/lessons learned - Tony
• Make sure lessons-learned is in the project plan template - Tony

By next quarter
• Develop a consistent approach to reviewing code - Brian
• Get and read the PMBOK (www.pmi.org) - Tony
• Start meetings of the remaining "change board" - Jeff
• Complete a reading/discussion group on Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson, Mastering the Requirements Process, Addison-Wesley, 1999 - Tony
• Go investigate Earned Value - Tony
• Get copies of
  • Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg, Exploring Requirements
  • Quality Before Design, Dorset House, 1989
• Look into peer reviews: - Lawrence
  • Daniel Freedman, Gerald Weinberg, Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews
  • Evaluating Programs, Projects, and Products, Third Edition, Dorset House, 1990, David Wheeler, Bill Brykczynski, Reginald Meeson,
  • Software Inspection - An Industry Best Practice, IEEE Computer Society Press, 1996
  • CxOne peer reviews stuff

By next 6 months
• Extract defect tracking data and plot your own "Upstream, downstream" graph - Lawrence

By next year
• Start looking into the Cone of Uncertainty.
  Think about how it might be applied within the organization given all that's happened up to now - Tony

Background stuff
• Get a couple of copies of
  • Michael Doyle and David Straus, How to Make Meetings Work
  • The New Interaction Method, Reprinted Edition, Berkley Publishing Group, 1993
  • Tom DeMarco & Tim Lister, Peopleware, 10th Anniversary Edition, Dorset House, 1998
  • Robert Block, The Politics of Projects, Yourdon Press, ~1984
  • Stephen Robbins, Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 6th Ed., Prentice Hall, 2000
  • Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation, 4th Ed.(?), Free Press, 1994
  • Project Management Institute, Project Management Body of Knowledge (PM-BOK), available at www.pmi.org
• Think about Product Management