The catch is of course the free versions of good software methodology is very complex
and the more watered down version costs money.
If you have a lot of time on your hands CMM or capability maturity model might do the trick.
See http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.html
Be forwarned... CMM is very complex , lengthy and can be quite expensive to
become a certified software company. However, there is a lot of great insight to be
learned here -- since software metholody should work for any language
Now moving this into the real world, where we have time pressures, no formalized
stucture to force us into best practices... I'd suggest taking a look at Flip
over at the Fusebox.org site. What's important here is how the software development cycle fundementals
are managed (not the fact that the process uses Fusebox.. let me make that clear).
To strip the process even further, let's take a look at the traditional Waterfall model.
1) Your functional requirements should flow from your project charter or approved proposal.
Good requirement documents provide anaylsis of roles, the types of information
the application needs to present, the types of reports needed, the audiance, and things like how they will access
information. Requirements documents should be short and to the point... let the wireframe process
take care of business rules as you discuss these with the client.
2) Your wireframes displaying the graphical functionality of your application should flow from
your functional requirments. This is the palce where you begin to finalize the business rules
and begin tracking change requests (and potentally assigning project steps)
3) Your Object model should be created in parrell with wireframe development.
Object models being more important in flash, Java and .Net projects than CF, however with CFCs
this step is now included. My object models include stored proceedures and any user defined functions
I might need.
4) Your Data model should flow from the Object model and business rules decided
though the wireframe process
5) Your application should flow from the data model, object model and wirefram
6) Your functional test plan should flow from the wireframe model. At some point around here
there should be a functional freeze on your project. Ditto for the design test and useability test plans
6a) Useability and design tests occur here. This is where you'll recieve feedback from users.
7) Your deployment should follow
8) Your technical documentation should be explaining the data model, object model,
and wireframes as well as production information
9) Your user guide should be a dressed up verion of the wireframe with the associated bells and whistles
10) In the waterfall model, the client looks at the application and makes changes based upon
changes in the model and create another project charter if changes are needed.
With all of this said, many follow some or may even add more steps to this process. If you're a
MS project user, with this documentation you can assign tasks based upon your findings
from these steps.
Jeremy Brodie
Edgewater Technology
web: http://www.edgewater.com
phone:(703) 815-2500
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> I'm taking the "opportunity to excel" here at work and trying to bring
> some order to our web application development. For the last year we
> have been a team of two experienced CF developers, the previous year
> there was only one. Pretty much working ad hock on projects as they
> came along with little formal documentation. A single developer was
> pretty much completely responsible for each project. This has worked
> well enough for the mostly smallish projects we have done to date.
>
> Success has lead to more confidence by management and they are
> beginning to authorize more ambitious projects that will be beyond the
> scope of what a single developer can do in a reasonable amount of time.
> Cool stuff with 1+ man years of development.
>
> To accommodate these projects our team is expanding. We are adding 3
> junior CF developers to the team. I believe we need to grow up and
> become more professional. Start applying a standard, formal software
> development process. Allowing multiple team members with different
> skill levels to work on these large projects.
>
> What I'm looking for are Software Life Cycle documentation templates,
> preferably free. When I've tried to Google for this stuff I only find
> examples that somebody wants to sell me (or even more costly entire
> consulting packages). I'm hoping some of you may have worked, or
> better yet managed, larger teams responsible for creating ColdFusion
> web applications and are willing and able to share some templates for
> Requirements, Design, Detailed Design type documentation or maybe know
> of a good resource where I might get these type of templates.
>
> Also any nice suggestions for basic information on web application
> project management would be most appreciated. I've had overviews of
> analysis and design in classes, read about why formal processes good
> in many places, but this will be the first time I've ever tried to be
> anything like a "senior" developer after some seven years of mostly
> solo and duet work.
>
> scary, Scary, SCARY thought on many levels.
>
> Thanks for reading my combination plea/rant.
> Eternal thanks for any information.
>
> --------------
> Ian Skinner
> Web Programmer
> BloodSource
> www.BloodSource.org
> Sacramento, CA
>
> "C code. C code run. Run code run. Please!"
> - Cynthia Dunning
>
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