Bug Tracking Points to ConsiderWritten by Seapine Software
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4. "Open source" does not mean "no cost." There is a misconception that if something is free, there is no cost and you automatically save by choosing it as your tool. As saying goes, "There is no free lunch." What is catch? Hidden costs! Hidden costs include such things as hours needed to compile, setup, customize, and maintain solution. Many open source solutions require person administering solution be familiar with, if not an expert in, scripting and one or more programming languages or meta languages. There are additional costs in upgrading which are further increased if you have modified source code. For most development teams, cost of open source effort quickly exceeds cost of purchasing and deploying TestTrack Pro. 5. Developing your own solution is not free. Many database products on market today can help you build a solution from scratch. The problem is you are performing a custom software development effort that includes all of costs you currently incur and are able to bill when developing solutions you sell to your customers. Seapine Software has a team of software engineers and quality assurance personnel working full time on improving TestTrack Pro. With an in-house solution, like an open source solution, cost of developing your own solution quickly exceeds cost of purchasing and deploying TestTrack Pro. 6. Bug tracking should be easy to install, use, and maintain. Your bug tracking solution is supposed to save you time. It should not take days or even hours to install a bug tracking solution. The software should also work out of box with minimal customization. You should be able to customize it as you are using it. And, you should not have to dedicate a person to maintain it. Make sure product you select saves you time, improves your process, and allows clear communication of issues to all team members. Ease-of-use is a REAL benefit of TestTrack Pro. Seapine Software delivers a solution that is easy to install, easy to use, easy to maintain, without compromising features.
Established in 1995, Seapine Software has emerged into a proven leader in providing advanced cross-platform software life-cycle management solutions. Backed by market-leading technical support, a rapidly growing community of customers in over 52 countries, an unmatched combination of flexibility, and speed and ease of use, there isn't a better choice than Seapine.
| | Effective Software Development ProcessWritten by Blane Warrene
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* Does architecture meet standards of organization and industry standards? * Scale of system to handle level of use and growth of systems such as data storage, new interfaces, future improvements and modules. User Interface Design This can be a web browser based GUI or a software GUI. Either way, consideration should be given to both design of interface and discussion of how to handle changes to interface so as not to disrupt underlying application development. Database Design This is place to architect top-level view of database for this application. Depending upon scale, perhaps some ETL (extraction, transformation and load) tools may be used for design purposes. This is an area where challenges and risks can be identified further, as mentioned earlier. This would include reliance upon data sources or interfaces outside of control of technical team. Roles and Responsibilities A final step is to assign resources to varying sections of whole application. This is where expertise and experience are married to components and systems required to complete project. The completed design specifications will naturally lead to a functional specification. This makes it important to take an additional step prior to moving forward. This is a good time to bring original charter group back together with a presentation that shows how design of system answers business requirements and meets overall scope of charter. This discussion will most likely bring about some changes to design, and previously agreed upon change management process should be used to update design specification and move on to final stage prior to getting programming started. Functional Specification The goal of a functional specification is to achieve a handbook reference for technical team to develop, integrate, test and finally release a completed application. This document is much easier to complete with previous road map documents in hand. The technical team will never lose sight of business goals through charter and requirements, and design document has set parameters through which project will be accomplished. Also, repeated steps of communicating back to original group keeps flow of information on status and issues between business and technical teams and support does not waver for project. Now is time to address language specifics and how issues such as hardware and software dependencies and limitations will be addressed, performance requirements, security requirements, error handling and overall logging requirements. The applications varying sections are addressed with resource(s) in mind. This will enable a very clear timeline to be drawn and matched against original timeline from charter and updates may need to be provided to original group (keep in mind those QA and testers we mentioned) for scheduling. Again, be sure to use change management process. The completed functional specification will read like a technical reference guide for resources to construct application. It will provide a timeline to be followed and reported upon. And ultimately, it should lead to successful testing and completion of project. Conclusion Critical to success of any endeavor is communicating issues and solutions, and steps to achieve results. In application development, communication is very critical, not just between technical team members, but also between senior management and business users involved in project, as well as your QA and testers who will sign-off prior to deployment. The steps of any application project use business charter, business requirements, design and functional specification to ensure scope management and that goals are met with end result. However, there can be a disconnect between these parties as project is underway and coding begins. This can lead to loss of momentum and support from non-technical staff and managers, scope creep and/or misunderstandings, which may lead to failure. To avoid this, consider setting broad parameters for reporting status and general communications when building charter at inception of project. These can be scheduled meetings, e-mail updates and even presentations as needed. Also ensure your change management process is in charter, and that it entails communicating change requests to this group with a clearly defined process for approvals and comments. While some of project will seem technical and difficult to follow by non-technical team members, group remains informed, can feel they are invested in success of project, and can be your biggest cheerleaders when obstacles arise.
Prior to participating in the founding of BMRW & Associates, Blane served most recently as the Director of Technology for VESTAX Securities Corporation. In this capacity he was responsible for the management and evolution of the IT infrastructure and services for internal operations and field technology services for VESTAX financial advisors. Blane brings substantial knowledge in application & data integration, mining and management .
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