Effective Software Project Management

The Monitoring and Controlling Phase of an Extreme SDPM Strategy

Figure 35-1 highlights the Monitoring and Controlling Phase of an Extreme SDPM strategy.

Figure 35-1. The Monitoring and Controlling Phase of an Extreme SDPM strategy

First note the inclusion of the Check Phase as a very visible part of the Systems Development Life Cycle. It was part of the Adaptive and Iterative SDPM strategies, but here it takes on a different posture. Here the client and the development team are challenged to the limits of their creative abilities. The learning and discovery that was generated in the just completed iteration is used to identify next steps. Those next steps include not only a revalidation and redirection of the project scope and the integration of new functions and features, but also new initiatives aimed at further learning and discovery. In other words, the scope and its achievement are defined in parallel. One feeds on and clarifies the other. This proactive posture was not as prevalent in the Adaptive SDPM strategy. Much more is asked of the development team and the client in an Extreme SDPM strategy than is in the Adaptive SDPM strategy. In the Extreme case very little will be known about the solution from the standpoint of functionality and its accompanying features. It all has to be discovered. But it isn’t going to be discovered just because you want it to be. It will ...