• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

please suggest me process...

 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 3852
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
We are developing a component (small project) that life cycle is as follows:

1] Ananlysis � 15 days
2] Design � 15 days - 1 Month
3] Development, Testing, Review � 1.5 to 2 Month

All three phases are done by different peoples.

At this time it is waterfall model that is not recommened.. so which process would you recommend for this?? and what other factors we should keep in mind at the time of deciding process??

Thanks a lot.
[ August 05, 2005: Message edited by: rathi ji ]
 
blacksmith
Posts: 979
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator


1] Ananlysis � 15 days
2] Design � 15 days - 1 Month
3] Development, Testing, Review � 1.5 to 2 Month

All three phases are done by different peoples.



It looks like some preconditions have been set all-
ready with respect to your process.

Do you have an idea of what your use cases are, and
did you allready have some feedback with respect to
the priority of each use case?

Cheers,

Gian
[ August 05, 2005: Message edited by: Gian Franco Casula ]
 
author
Posts: 608
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Why don't you take a more evolutionary (iterative and incremental) approach that looks something like this:
1. Initial modeling (2-3 days).
2. Setup development environment (first week, in parallel with #1).
3. Iteration #1 (2 weeks)
4. Iteration #2 (2 weeks)
5. Iteration #3 (2 weeks)
6. Iteration #4 (2 weeks)
7. Deploy (2 weeks)

Looking at your initial schedule, you might not need all four development iterations. In your serial approach you're doing a lot of wasted work, mostly documenting things to hand off to the next group. Instead, put together a team of people and have them work together collaboratively. When you do this you need far less documentation, and you reduce the risk of misunderstood requirements because you don't have all the hand offs.

Interesting links that may help:
1. Initial Modeling
2. Agile Requirements Change Management for a strategy to organize requirements into iterations.
3. Model Storming for modeling the details that you need just in time.

- Scott
 
author
Posts: 14112
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by rathi ji:

All three phases are done by different peoples.



Why?

As Scott already implied, it's far better to not have separate phases, but to slice the project in iterations of functionality, and do the analysis, design, testing and coding in parallel for each feature.
 
ankur rathi
Ranch Hand
Posts: 3852
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
If I am getting it right then the process should be something like this:



The practical disadvantages I feel in this approach are:

- Analyzer and Designer are included in whole life cycle (3 Month). In any company they are less in number and also take more salary than developer.

- In iteration 1, developer may be free for some days and in later iteration i.e. 4, analyzer and designer may be free for some days...

Please comment..

Thanks a lot.
[ August 05, 2005: Message edited by: rathi ji ]
 
author
Posts: 11962
5
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by rathi ji:
- Analyzer and Designer are included in whole life cycle (3 Month). In any company they are less in number and also take more salary than developer.

- In iteration 1, developer may be free for some days and in later iteration i.e. 4, analyzer and designer may be free for some days...


And the solution is to either A) get rid of the "analyzer" role and use the same people for analysis, design, and development, or B) assign the analyst to two projects at a time.
 
author
Posts: 113
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

The practical disadvantages I feel in this approach are:

- Analyzer and Designer are included in whole life cycle (3 Month). In any company they are less in number and also take more salary than developer.

- In iteration 1, developer may be free for some days and in later iteration i.e. 4, analyzer and designer may be free for some days...

Please comment..



If the developers and analysts are working side by side, your developers will over time start to learn about architecture. They will learn (by experiencing it and participating) why the analysts make their decisions. The analysts will hear first hand the objections to any impractical designs they create.

All in all it sounds like a great way to build a more solid product ~and~ cross train the analysts and the developers. After a few projects you might not even need to differentiate between the two anymore!
 
Ilja Preuss
author
Posts: 14112
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by rathi ji:
- Analyzer and Designer are included in whole life cycle (3 Month). In any company they are less in number and also take more salary than developer.



You might actually experience that in the long run your projects become cheaper this way, because of the cross-training and the significantly improved communication between the team members.

And just to disprove your statement, in the company I'm working for, we have only developers of different experience levels, who are all responsible for analysis, design and implementation at the same time. In fact, the three activities (plus testing) are so strongly interwoven, that it wouldn't make much sense to separate them in time, let alone in person.


In iteration 1, developer may be free for some days and in later iteration i.e. 4, analyzer and designer may be free for some days...



There is always something to do for everyone on a project. Let the developers participate in the design discussions. Let them do some first rough prototypes to become comfortable with the technology used in the project. At the end of the project, let the analysts run the final acceptance tests on the system. Let the designers do a review on what they learned about the design of the project, and what they would do differently when they needed to do it again. etc. pp.
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 531
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by rathi ji:
We are developing a component ... three phases are done by different people. At this time it is waterfall model that is not recommened.. so which process

[ August 05, 2005: Message edited by: rathi ji ]



Waterfall: recommended and optimal for a small well-defined product.

In effect a single iteration within an agile process. If what you have is not well defined than you should apply an incremental approach. Build one useful feature and make it solid. That will define your build and development setup for more features going forward.

Too bad the Denver Airport didn't do that. A 250 million dollar baggage tag scanner would have been better than a 250 million dollar shell of an entire system with zero functionality and no hope of every delivering any. Heck, how about a $250,000,000 airport cocktail lounge? Better than nothing.
 
Ilja Preuss
author
Posts: 14112
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Rick O'Shay:
In effect a single iteration within an agile process.



No, sorry. An XP iteration, for example, doesn't very much look like waterfall inside.
 
Lasse Koskela
author
Posts: 11962
5
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
No, sorry. An XP iteration, for example, doesn't very much look like waterfall inside.


Nor does a Scrum sprint.
 
Lasse Koskela
author
Posts: 11962
5
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Rick O'Shay:
Too bad the Denver Airport didn't do [incremental development]. A 250 million dollar baggage tag scanner would have been better than a 250 million dollar shell of an entire system with zero functionality and no hope of every delivering any. Heck, how about a $250,000,000 airport cocktail lounge? Better than nothing.


Amen.
 
ankur rathi
Ranch Hand
Posts: 3852
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Thanks a lot Lasse, Jared and Ilja.

Now its all clear. Good thing is that it is not subjective, every expert is saying the same.
 
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic