Effective Software Project Management

The Scope Phase of an Adaptive SDPM Strategy

Projects that follow an Adaptive SDPM strategy are those for which a complete Requirements Breakdown Structure (RBS) cannot be defined at the outset and the customer and project team knows it. The situation might be characterized somewhat along the lines of Figure 25-1.

Figure 25-1. The initial RBS for an Adaptive SDPM strategy

There is a cloud that covers the solution. The objective of the Adaptive SDPM strategy is to move the cloud and discover what lies behind it—in other words, to learn and discover what constitutes the full solution. The Adaptive SDPM strategy must accommodate not only the development of the known parts of the solution but also discovery of the unknown parts of the solution. Implementing the known parts of the solution is much like we discussed in the Incremental and Iterative SDPM strategies. Discovering the unknown parts of the solution will require a tight collaboration of the customer with the project team. It will look much like the pure R&D effort of the Extreme SDPM strategy. Probative ideas will be investigated in one or more cycles. Some will be rejected. Some will open up directions for further probes in later cycles. And some will result in more of the solution being uncovered and then implemented in later cycles. To do this effectively and efficiently is a challenge. The Scoping Phase will lay out ...