Page 101 - DCAP305_PRINCIPLES_OF_SOFTWARE_ENGINEERING

Unit 5: Software Project Planning

5. Place the milestones into the model on the whiteboard from the end to the beginning. Notes
6. Think through the project from the start and if necessary create more milestones.
7. Adjust the milestones so that they are right in time.

8. Choose which milestones will be used in the project and document these. Place first
milestones at the top of the board and the last ones at the bottom.

Prioritise generality before detail. You will plan the details later if necessary. This process is
best if everyone stands in front of the whiteboard and work together doing the milestone-chart.

Figure 5.1: An Example of a Milestone-Chart

The milestones delivered from the group work are either documented in a chart, like the example
above (See Figure 5.1), or in a form.

It could be enough for smaller projects to use a more detailed Milestone-chart as the project plan.
They also suggest that the Milestone-chart only needs to be complemented with a detailed plan
containing activities for the next step in the project. This detailed plan should have assigned
resources added to it and other necessary needs of the project.

5.1.2 Activities
Burenius and Lindstedt define activities as the machines of the project.

In the activities:
• All deliverables are produced
• All resources are used

• All follow-up is done (results and pitfalls)
An activity should complete deliverables as final results, be optimal use of resources and easy
to follow-up in progress reports.
An activity can be formulated by verbs and nouns e.g. build prototype and write report. In
building your list of activities it should, according to the Software Project Management, include
not only the effort based, e.g. perform system testing, kind of activities but schedule dependent,
e.g. attend weekly meetings, and synchronisation activities, e.g. formal technical reviews, as well.

When producing your activity list, make sure that you make a list that is easily understood and
is in a useful form. First break up your list into phases and have a separate list for each phase.

Your list should contain information like name and description of the activity, how long it will
be in duration. Another good thing to do is to specify which resources should be allocated to
the activity, and if there are activities that depend on each other.

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