Market your Web
Project Management Considerations
1. Is it worth it for your project?
A project of any size will utilize project management. regardless of the scope, or who is doing the work it will be needed. the involvement and structure will be in varying degrees dependant on the actual project.Take the example of a simple corporate web site being developed by one web designer. They will meet with you, work out the requirements of the project, hopefully write them down somewhere, and plan what needs to be done. This will involve when, how long the job will take and what it will cost. Once they start programming they will review the work, and probably continue to meet with you, the Client.
All this will be built into the price they present you for the job. The less time they intend to spend doing these planning and monitoring tasks, the cheaper it will be. However at a certain point, spending less time on project management will mean wasted time and money doing other tasks, such as additional programming, additional meetings and additional testing. Additionally if nothing is written down, such as a Vision and Scopeor a Technical Specification document, the work your web designer does will not necessarily be what you originally wanted. Have a look at our philosphy on communications.
2. What is UML all about?
UML is part of a standardised visual modeling language, called Unified Modeling Language. It is most commonly used with Object Oriented programming, such as Java. However UML is platform agnostic. The concepts can be used for modeling almost any system, even of a non-technical nature.To give you an idea of what this language looks like, think of a flow chart diagram. There are squares, circles, lines joining them and annotations all over. UML is similar in style to this. It's not your standard programming language with lines of text. The benefit is that someone can readily understand the inner workings of a complicated application and how it will be put together.
The UML documents are only explaining how the application will work and get put together. It is almost irrelevant at this stage what you are going to build it with e.g. programming language. However UML will define the structure of how you build this application. This will impose constraints on some programming languages.
We apologise if this sounds somewhat alien, however the science of Object Oriented Methodology (OOM) and its terminology is a subject all on its own. And unfortunately well beyond the scope of this web site. If you are interested in more information, these are the market leaders in use of UML. Below is a brief outline of the concept of how UML works:
Think of the project you are developing as being comprised of three key parts:
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System:
The application and all the logic - we are not talking about the web pages the user sees, but what happens behind the scenes.
Actors:
Anyone or anything that interacts with the system, such as the Customer, the web site administrator, another database.
Relationships:
Graphically represented as lines. They explain how the components within the system interact and how the actors interact with the system.
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Classes:
Collection of Objects with common structures and behaviours, where an object is a basic building block of a system defined by its properties, behaviours and actions.
Also, say it's a year after your web was launched. Its advantage is that you can easily design changes into your existing architecture. So it's a LOT cheaper, than someone going through a written description of what the site does and then searching through the code.
3. What kind of documentation and processes are we talking about?
Below is a list of the main documentation we use. There is also an explanation of what it is, when it would be needed in the development process, and why it would be of any use to you!If you are not familiar with UML, please read the article above. To see how the key documents fit into the process of building your project, click here.
| Quote | What: | Estimate of time and cost to complete your project. |
| When: | Always the first thing! | |
| Why: | Know how much $$$$$ | |
| Vision & Scope | What: | More detailed than a quote, this is an outline of what is, and just as importantly, what is not included in the project. |
| When: | Before starting a project. | |
| Why: | So there's no confusion between parties as to what the project is all about. | |
| Technical Specification | What: | Detailed technical requirements, such as bandwidth, code and server requirements. |
| When: | Before starting a project. | |
| Why: | Serves the same purpose of a Vision & Scope document. Vision & Scope refers to what Users see and are able to do, whereas the technical specifications refer to how the system will work, the backbone. | |
| Use Cases (UML) | What: | Capture business processes from the User's perspective. |
| When: | The beginning of the Project. Together with the Vision & Scope, it is used as a basis to develop the following documents. | |
| Why: | Enable you to model your System, independent of implementation language. | |
| Class Diagram (UML) | What: | Represents a static structure of a System. It shows the existence of Classes, their structures and behaviours; their relationships, such as association or inheritance |
| When: | As a result of the Use Cases | |
| Why: | See What is UML all about? | |
| Sequence Diagram (UML) | What: | Displays object interactions in a time sequence. |
| When: | As a result of the Use Cases and Class Diagrams | |
| Why: | See What is UML all about? | |
| State Transition Diagram (UML) | What: | Shows the life history of a given Class, the events that cause transition from one state to another, and the resulting actions. |
| When: | As a result of the Use Cases and Class Diagrams | |
| Why: | See What is UML all about? | |
| Deployment Diagram (UML) | What: | Reveals physical implementation architecture. |
| When: | Once the project is built, before you "Go Live" | |
| Why: | See What is UML all about? |
The development process can be split into phases. The clearest is Design, Develop, Deploy (or more technically termed Inception, Elaboration, Construction and Transition). Each phase is a series of iterations, with reviews at the end of each. For example, you build a database for your products, you look at it, then notice it needs to be changed to incorporate some customer information. That would be a Design Iteration Review.
If you have created the UML documentation, this iteration process will be driven by the Use Cases. The advantage to having the Use Cases as reference, is that you can go through all the aspects of the design and see how they affect the rest of your "JigSaw". As a result of these changes the UML documentation will evolve to reflect the changes made by these iterations. At the end of the project, you will have an accurate Blueprint of your web, that is ready for any more changes you will throw it's way!
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