Soft audit Checklist・No2: Planning management process
The second part of the development process checklist is planning management
In this article, we will introduce each item of the audit checklist used for software development audit . The audit checklist is divided into ( 1) development process, ( 2) requirements management, (3) testing, and (4) design and implementation. In this article, (1 ) individual items of planning management in the development process are introduced. (The checklist itself can be found in the article on Software Audit Practice / Checklist Part 1: Development Process (Requirements Management) , so please refer to that.)
Check items for plan management
Check items related to plan management are 6 items whose item numbers start with PP-. It is not limited to software development, but first a plan is required for management. It is this Category that confirms what kind of development process is used to create a complete development plan . Let’s look at them in order.
[Item number: PP-01]
The software development department makes promises (commitments) to customers and in-house manufacturing departments, such as the release time of software and the functions and performance to be installed . According to the commitment made by this development department, the customer considers the introduction plan of new software, and the in-house manufacturing department plans the production line.
Promises made by software development departments outside the organization have a great impact on the activities of organizations and individuals outside the development department, so once a commitment is declared too lightly, it becomes unreliable. Therefore, when making a commitment outside the development department, the person in charge of the development department always reviews the content. . The content to be confirmed is whether it has such a business structure.
[Item number: PP-02]
The first thing to consider when making a development plan is the development man-hours. Estimate the scale of software that meets the development requirements (how many KLOC code is required), estimate how many man-hours it will take to design, implement, and test the source code of that scale, and plan the required development personnel. Then, you can see the development delivery date .
It is easy to write in this way, but it is quite difficult to estimate the development man-hours with high accuracy because there are many factors that fluctuate, such as the required development man-hours changing significantly if the required quality and operating environment are different even with the same development scale . .. In addition, there is no general-purpose estimation method that can be estimated in this way, so the estimated development man-hours may vary greatly depending on the experience of the person making the estimate.
In order to minimize such fluctuations, it is necessary to set rules for the estimation method and everyone should estimate with the same rules. The content to check is whether there is a rule that describes such an estimation method.
[Item number: PP-03]
There are at least these items in the development plan that must be written. Development costs, necessary equipment, necessary human resources, delivery dates, and technical concerns . In particular, technical concerns must be identified at the beginning of development, and countermeasures must be taken as the development work progresses.
It is important to write down in the development plan what technical issues there are and who will take measures by what time . It is the content to confirm that these items are written in the development plan without omission and that there is a mechanism to review the contents.
[Item number: PP-04]
Unless it is a fairly small software, the number of situations where all source code is developed in-house has decreased. On the contrary, more and more software is being developed by adding functions to existing software , deleting functions, and installing applications on top of free software OS. The software that is the basis of such development is called the development base software . And since the quality of this base software has a great influence on the quality of the software that is our company’s product, it is important to check the quality firmly.
Therefore, how do you check the quality of the original software, for example, do you do some kind of test in-house ? If you can not test in-house, estimate the quality from the operation record of the market Check whether the base software is designed / implemented / tested according to the proper procedure .
[Item number: PP-05]
In order to develop software, various equipment, target hardware, integrated development environment for operation check / debugging, etc. are required. In addition, we often use an in-house system such as a document management system for maintaining design documents and a bug tracking system for bug management. Such development environment, equipment and in-house systemCheck whether the required quantity and timing are planned .
[Item number: PP-06]
In the case of development that meets the specifications required by the customer, the ability to maintain the development plan by contacting the customer regularly even during development and sharing information such as development requirements, progress, and quality. Works. Unfortunately, many software development projects tend to delay their development plans due to increased requirements and unreasonable processes in the initial plan .
However, by having regular meetings with customers, we may focus on activities to make up for delays in internal development, and as a result , minimize delays . Also, even if the plan seems to be delayed, you can minimize the impact by consulting with the customer early . Considering such things, regular information sharing with customers is difficult, but it is one important method that leads to the success of the project, so make sure that the specific method is decided in the development plan. To do.
Next to plan management is tracking
Next to the confirmation of plan management, the confirmation items for tracking (plan performance tracking) will be introduced in the next article.