Project Development Budget

Good estimates are important, as they form the foundations of a good project development plan. This plan, prepared by the project manager, is produced during the initial stages of the project and includes estimates related to:

• The project development budget • The project development schedule

• The required development resources (development staff, development equipment etc.)

In parallel with integration and testing, the following managerial and activities take place:

• Final budgeting of the project; the cost of changes is determined, risk contingency activities are evaluated, and the budget is updated.

• Training is conducted for users, operators, customers, installers, maintenance engineers, and marketing engineers.

• Installation sites are prepared, and the infrastructure for hardware and special equipment is planned and installed.

• The development team size is reduced. 12. Maintenance Documents

The phased approach to software development divides the development life cycle into:

• The development of the software code

• Preparation for integration and test of the system (the next phase) • The development of the maintenance plan

Apart from the actual code being written (and hopefully being well commented), some of the other documents that are developed during this phase include:

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• The programmer's notebook, documenting coding decisions, unit tests, and resolution of implementation problems.

• Maintenance plan and documentation, including all necessary documentation needed for system maintenance.

• Initial versions of the user documentation, including reference manuals and operator guides.

At the conclusion of the integration and test phase all documentation must be complete and ready for delivery, including:

• Maintenance documentation • Final user documentation

• All updated development documentation • Test documentation and test reports

Maintenance requires a much smaller team, and a different type of management. In fact, a single maintenance group can be established to maintain several products, with common management, configuration control, installation and field engineers, and maintenance of documentation.

The documents that need to be updated during this phase include: • Version release documentation

• Problem reports

• All development documentation • All user documentation

• Maintenance logs and customer service reports 13. The statement of work (SOW)

The statement of work is the basis of the contract between the pro-poser and the customer, and is often incorporated into the contract. The SOW contains a detailed list of all work to be performed by the pro-poser for the benefit of the customer.

It is a narrative description of products or services to be supplied by the project. For internal projects, the project initiator or sponsor provides the statement of work based on business needs, or product or service requirements. For external projects, the statement of work can be received from the customer as part of a bid document, for example, request for proposal, request for information, request for bid, or as part of a contract. The SOW indicates a:

• Business need - an organization’s business need, can be based on needed training, market demand, technological advance, legal requirement, or governmental standard.

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• Product scope description - documents the product requirements and

characteristics of the product or service that the project will be undertaken to create. The product requirements will generally have less detail during the initiation process and more detail during later processes, as the product characteristics are progressively elaborated. These requirements should also document the relationship among the products or services being created and the business need or other stimulus that causes the need. While the form and substance of the product requirements document will vary, it should always be detailed enough to support later project planning.

• Strategic plan - all projects support the organization’s strategic goals—the strategic plan of the performing organization should be considered as a factor in project selection decisions.

The SOW starts as a general list of required deliverables in the RFP. A more detailed version t of the SOW is submitted as part of the proposal, and is still considered only an initial description of the work to be performed. The blinding version of the SOW is finalized during contract negotiations, or after the detailed project requirements have been completed.

Table 6 presents an example of an SOW outline for a software project. The list of items varies considerably, depending on the type of project being developed; for example not all projects include the delivery of hardware components, and not all projects require training or installation.

The basic guideline for the preparation of the SOW is that any activity, service or product required by the customer, and agreed to by the developer, must be

included. This means that there can be no binding work items that were

informally understood or agreed to verbally, which do not appear in the SOW. The formal SOW must include all and only the work to be performed. This condition prevents misunderstandings and disagreements later, after the project begins.

The statement of work (SOW) describes the procurement item in sufficient detail to allow prospective sellers to determine if they are capable of providing the item. “Sufficient detail” may vary, based on the nature of the item, the needs of the buyer, or the expected contract form.

Some application areas recognize different types of SOW. For example, in some government jurisdictions, the term SOW is reserved for a procurement item that is a clearly specified product or service, and the term Statement of Objectives (SOO) is used for a procurement item that is presented as a problem to be solved.

The statement of work may be revised and refined as it moves through the procurement process. For example, a prospective seller may suggest a more

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efficient approach or a less costly product than that originally specified. Each individual procurement item requires a separate statement of work. However, multiple products or services may be grouped as one procurement item with a single SOW.

Table 6: A sample SOW outline for a software project 1. Referenced documents

• requirements specification • existing system description • customer's RFP

• developer's proposal

• vendor's and developer's technical literature 2. Software deliverables

• functionality (as documented in the requirements specification) • list of major software components