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Ed Manley [mailto:EManley -at- Solutionsplus -dot- com] asked about: "introducing
"modern techniques" into my company, a
software development shop...I mean software development process improvement,
particularly in the areas of requirements
elicitation and management, and documentation for the software development
lifecycle."
_________________________
Ed:
I worked as a tech writer in the Integration Testing department of one
division of a communications industry hardware and software company. I
started about the time that my division was implementing a structured
development methodology that they adapted from a program introduced by an
engineering coonsulting firm. Everyone in the division received training in
the program, and a large 3-ring notebook containing the training materials
and outlines of the various recommeded documents.
The 4-phase process encompassed everything from the initial concept
evaluation, through requirements definition and planning, then design
implementation and testing, through product release and/or production, and
ended with a postmortem evaluation of all the stages so that the lessons
learned could be applied to future projects and releases.
Once some examples of the specified documents for the next full release
started to appear, I took the document outlines in the training materials
and what sample documents I could get my hands on, and created Word
templates for each document type and put them on the network. The developers
and engineers could just fill in the necessary information and numbers
(sample dummy tables were included)to produce the level of spec doc that
they were required to provide.
It wasn't part of my test documentation job, but until we could get detailed
specs for UI, hardware, and database changes, I couldn't write test plan
docs. {I'll send Ed a copy of the doc requirements table, and a sample
template, and will forward them to anyone else who requests them off-list.)
The list of specification documents was comprehensive for both hardware and
software, but most products or releases did not require all of them.
The enforcement of the structured process made significant improvements in
the development and release of a major combined hardware and software
upgrade. Then, when the company was squeezed by a market downturn, the
division was combined with another division that had vigorously resisted all
attempts to structure its development efforts, and most of the benefits
disappeared. The structure has to be wholheartedly imposed or enforced by
high-level management for it to succeed, but providing templates and other
aids to make the job easy for the developers takes away a lot of their
resistance. I have applied some of what I learned in my current position,
and I'm sure I'll use it again in the future. The difference in the two
divisions using it and not using it was like night & day.
Margaret Cekis
Margaret -at- mediaocean
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