29 Nov The Key Steps for Successful Software Project Management | Part 3
Continuing on from our “Key steps for Successful Software Project Management | Part 2 |”, in which we explained the importance of team building and the different exercises the students participated in and how it will help the students for their capstone project and also in future employment. In this Part 3, we will talk about the importance of choosing a methodology and how documenting your journey
The Software Development Life Cycle
To organise your team, every member needs to be on board with the chosen methodology whether you choose an Agile Software Development to approach using Scrum and/or Kanban or going to the Waterfall Software Development approach.
> Waterfall approach is quite linear and is less flexible, the development is done in order from start to finish.
> Agile Software Development methodology is a lot more popular in the IT industry as it allows rapid delivery and regular reviews with the Product Owner to adapt the product and the development team workflow. This “agility” aligns development with customer needs and company goals. This is why Techtorium mentors chose for our Software Students to implement the Agile methodology to their teams.
- Scrum is a subset of Agile and uses development cycles based on Sprints
- Kanban is also a subset of Agile and can be used instead of or conjointly with Scrum. Usually, the Kanban method uses colourful post-it notes and splits the workload into categories: To do, doing and done.
The Vision from the Product Owner is what will define the product requirements. Together with the Scrum Master, they will establish the User stories which describe how a user will utilise the software or application being developed e.g: one user story could be that the user needs a login and a password.
The user stories can then be splits in a number of tasks which are listed in a product backlog. Agile Software Development methodology means that the development team doesn’t necessarily start coding in the same order as the user’s experience. Instead, they will qualify, size and prioritise the tasks based on the team’s capacity; this is referred to as backlog grooming.
The next step is the Sprint Planning in order to create a sprint backlog and list the tasks that will be achieved during a sprint of 2 to 4 weeks where the team of developers will code, test and debug. The goal at the end of each sprint is to deliver a functional feature of the software or app otherwise called an “increment”. The Product Owner will be able to view the progress made and adjust the requirements of the product during the iteration review. The Retrospective is a review on how the sprint went, which challenges the team faced and what can be improved to then get on to the next Sprint planning.
Every approved feature add up to become your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) which could be your Beta version of your software/app.
Document your journey
We learn from our experiences, as individuals but also as a team. Project Management will not be a smooth journey, it is very likely you will encounter conflict, pressure, doubt, blocks but also breakthroughs, support, comprises relief and achievements.
Documenting your journey from a Team leader, a junior developer and as a whole team will also give you invaluable insights on how to keep improving your performance and which skills you have gained along the way.
For Techtorium Software Students who are graduating at the end of this year, this will contribute to their Portfolio of Evidence showcasing their skills to future employers in terms of coding languages and technologies they know but also how they can fit in a software team being familiar with a Project Life Cycle.
WANT TO STUDY SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT?
Techtorium offers Software Development Courses:
Our Entry course:
Level 5 New Zealand Diploma in Information Systems
which pathways to the second year of
Level 6 New Zealand Diploma in Software Development