SDP is abbreviated as Software Development Plan which describes a process of developers planning to develop a software project. SDP also helps to make sure if software development is performed systematically or not. In this article a detailed knowledge has been provided about Software Development Planning and the process of how it can be done to complete a particular software development project.
Table of Content
What is a Software Development Plan (SDP) ?
A Software Development Plan is defined as a type of document of an overall strategy for creating a software project. SDP serves as a roadmap which guides the development team throughout the lifecycle of a project. It provides a tool for monitoring the process which needs to be followed in the process of software development. The SDP demonstrates all the phases of the process- planning, ideation, design, analysis, deployment, development, production, maintenance and launch.
Aim of Software Development Plan (SDP)
The aim or purpose of the Software Development Plan is to communicate with the stakeholders and team members. Whenever developing software on a program and how project managers use direct resources then this kind of plan or approach is being used. The Software development plan sets clear communication channels and workflows between the parts which are involved and also sets the clear roles and responsibilities for the team members.
Objective of Software Development Plan (SDP)
The main objective of a Software Development Plan is to provide a type of framework where the team members can have a clear knowledge and understanding on that particular software project on which they are working and the problems which the team members want to solve. The SDP is also used to find the time and cost effective solutions to complete and deliver reliable, high quality projects to the users.
Steps of SDP
There are major six steps which are associated in a Software development plan which are mentioned below:
- Step 1: Team formation
- Step 2: Create a Plan
- Step 3: Develop an overview
- Step 4: Prepare the Draft
- Step 5: Submit for the review purpose
- Step 6. Lastly Finalize the SDP
Prerequisite of developing SDP
Software Development plan should be developed by the contractor’s preferred format and also needs to be documented all the processes applicable to the system. The prerequisite for developing SDP are mentioned below:
- When the particular tasks needs to be completed time and date should be mentioned. Therefore timeline of all tasks should be there with the mentioned project deadlines.
- Details should be provided about the team and which team member is performing which type of task.
- Extra additional planning for budget should be also a prerequisite of Software development plan.
Software Development Plan (SDP) Overview
The complete overview of a Software Development Plan consists of the following sections.:
1. Introduction
The Introduction part of Software Development plan consist of the overview of the software project which includes its aim, objectives and the scope. Software development introduction part also provides the the previous or the past experiences and it also provides information about the main context.
2. Organization of the Project
The Software development Plan gives the detail explanation about how the project team which is set up includes the roles and responsibilities of each team members. It also names all the important people’s and explains about how they are being involved in the development process.
3. Scheduling the Project
The Project schedule part demonstrates the software development projects majorly the deliverables, milestones and the deadlines in which the projects needs to be submitted. Project schedule part also includes the use Gantt charts or the another planning tools which shows how long the project will takes to complete.
4. List of Resources
The Software development plan list the resources which needs the tools, people, places required to work and the software. These resources may vary time to time as there can be a need of buying, setting and training up the facilities which can be needed in the future.
5. Managing the Risks
In software development plan this parts deals with the risk management, the various types of risks which can affect the success of the project. The risk management is done by the following process such as- analysis of risks, the effects of these risks and the multiple ways to deal with the risks.
6. Development of Methodology
The plan and the methods for developing the software are been discussed in this part which may say that the agile methods like the scrum or the other standard methods like the waterfall which are used. The methodology which was chosen decides how the tasks needs to be set up, how the work is tracked and the software quality which is ensured.
7. Quality Assurance
In this part of the SDP it demonstrates the planning and the activities which are used to ensure that the software is made of high quality. This part of SDP includes the testing process, code reviewing process, checking the quality metrics and the documentations standards.
8. Managing the Configuration
The Software development plan demonstrate the tools and the methods for managing the software configuration such as the version control, build management and the release management which also sets the rules of merging, branching and under the control keeping a stable codebase.
9. Documents
The Software development describes what type of documents the software project needs which may have plans for the technical documentation, user manuals and the design documents which are made during the process of project development.
10. Project Control and Monitoring
This is the last part of the Software development plan which explains how to track the ultimate progress of the project, keep the performance metrics and keep the required changes under the control which includes the steps of progress meetings, change in the management and the regular reports on the project state.
Mistakes to be avoided while developing SDP
Some of the mistakes which needs to be avoided while writing a SDP are mentioned below:
- Not including the stakeholders in the SDP planning process.
- Never ignore the Quality Assurance in SDP planning.
- Lack of communication can arise therefore try to communicate with the team leaders and stakeholders as much as possible for good understanding.
- Not keeping documentation is another big mistake.
- Lacking flexibility.
- Setting un-real deadlines for the project.
- Inadequate requirement analysis.
Conclusion
Software Development Plan plays an important role in the planning of software development projects. Therefore, SDP is a sub-discipline of project management in which the particular software is planned, implemented and controlled. Thus, in this article SDP is discussed in detail for better knowledge and understanding.