Software Architect's Handbook

Team and situational factors to consider

If you are involved with project planning, also consider situational factors such as the existing infrastructure of the organization (facilities, equipment), the organization's culture, the maturity of the organization's processes, and the tools that are made available for the project to use.

Make sure you also take into consideration the skill level and experience of your team. This includes not just the developers, but everyone on the team, such as the business analysts and QA testers. There can be quite a bit of variance depending on this factor. You may not know who will be assigned a particular task yet, but consider the overall skill levels of the team, along with their strengths and weaknesses, ...