Effective Software Project Management

The Closing Phase of the Incremental SDPM Strategy

Figure 15-1 illustrates the Closing Phase of the Incremental SDPM strategy. First note that there are really two parts to the Closing Phase:

• Closure with respect to each of the increments

• Closure with respect to the completed project

Figure 15-1. The Closing Phase of the Incremental SDPM strategy

There are some similarities between these two but some important differences as well.

The similarities center on requirements satisfaction at the completion of each increment. Remember that the functionality and features allocated to each increment were those that had sufficient business value to the client to be released to the market and its buying public.

Requirements validation should be done on an increment-by-increment basis by comparing the actual features and functions against the planned features and functions. All of this would have been documented in an increment acceptance test procedure developed and approved by the customer and the project manager during the planning phase. As long as that document is kept current, the validation entails nothing more than demonstrating that all items on the acceptance test procedure list for that increment have been checked off. If the document has not been kept current, then validation becomes a shooting contest and the customer usually wins. Because the Incremental SDPM strategy is based ...