Quality Of Information Must Be Maintained

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

In sharing a lessons learned, it is not enough to simply publicize it. Some consideration must be given to who will benefit from the lessons, and this group is referred as target audience. Care should be taken when sharing lessons to ensure the lessons learned will be significant to the target audience and so, promote effective learning. Generally target audience is that who needs the information to improve his efficiency in project development process.

Generally there are two types so audience are there:

Project management planner needs this lessons learned information in deciding the project management plan. They can design the project management plan learning from the ancestors or previous project, which can be useful in their ongoing project. Planning by learning from previous project would help organization in doing mistake which earlier project has gone though.

Training purpose

Lessons learned information is needed to train the personnel in the organization. They can be aware about the issue which could be arising during the course of project development. They can learn from the information given in lessons learned that will improve the efficiency of the training people.

2) When to share information?

Sharing is not an event which should be occur a single in lessons learned process but it is something that to be started as early as possible and to be repeated frequently throughout the whole process.

Lessons learned information sharing can occur at any time during the lessons learned process, not just as the last step or as part of remedial action implementation. It involves sharing information but not formal information like action review of remedial action or intermediate report during ongoing process of lessons learned.

Information must be secured.

Lessons learned information should be managed with an emphasis on sharing, balanced by the considerations for security.

Sharing lessons learned, when not managed properly; result in accidental disclosure of classified information to someone who does not have to access the information. So, information must be classified and must be secured so that risk of unauthorized disclosure is mitigated. Shoring of information must be well-managed. Only authorized person can access the lessons learned information. In multinational units, security must be maintained. Lessons learned manager is responsible of secure sharing of information.

Good and bad both issue should be shared

When a good practice is noted, there is a natural desire to tell everybody about it immediately. This is understandable, but should be done with caution until the practice has been analysed properly to determine the conditions and circumstances where it is valid, and how it can be ‘institutionalized’ smoothly. The danger with sharing good practices too early is that people may assume this is enough to reach a Lesson Learned and might done mistake.

Conversely, there may be a natural desire to hide or minimize ineffective or unfavourable practices, or to blame negative outcomes on human error rather than ineffective plans, techniques, or procedures. Lessons learned manager should encourage the personnel reporting of mistakes, by making the distinction between simple human error and more systemic problems. When an ineffective or negative practice is concealed or minimized, it denies others the opportunity to learn from it, and it restricts the opportunity to use knowledge or insights gained through experience to improve.

Quality of information must be maintained

Different types of LL Information have different levels of quality. Quality is dependent on the maturity of the information with respect to the Lessons Learned process, in other words the amount of analysis and enquiry it has undergone. The level of quality will affect your tendency to share the information as well as its utility to target audience. Examples of information at differing levels of quality include:

Low quality LL information: Raw observations, good practices

Medium quality LL information: Mature observations, Lessons Identified

High quality Lessons learned information: Lessons Learned, Lessons Learned analysis, Reports

Low quality lessons learned information may be incomplete or can be incorrect, but that does not necessarily mean it has no value. The important thing to remember is to disclose the reliability and maturity of the information to others to ensure they can use it appropriately. Low quality lesson learned information may be useful to others as a starting point for further planning, experimentation, testing, etc. However, it should not be acted on without appropriate analysis. As doing so, might be wasteful and dangerous. Provided the people you are sharing with are aware of the quality of your information and know how to best use that information.

3) How to share Lesson learned information?

Lessons learned information should be published by pushing and pulling of information. Pushing information means that new information is actively sent out to consumers or subscribers as it becomes available, while pulling information implies that consumers have to regularly check to see if new information has become available. An example of pushing information is the distribution of newsletters and the sending of e-mails to subscribers when something happens like the posting of new information on a portal. An example of pulling information is publishing it to a database where people are expected to go to find the information without being alerted that new or updated information has been published.

Most organizations will choose to use a combined push and pull approach whereby there are procedures to ensure that high-impact, high-priority, urgent information is pushed to the appropriate people quickly and lower-priority issues are automatically stored somewhere until the user chooses to check for updates.

There are lots of means for exchange of lessons learned information. Some of them are given below:

Communities of Interest

Communities of interest engage in socialized learning and are groups of people who have common goals interacting with each other. They gain knowledge by being part of such communities.

There are a number of benefits to participating in a community of interest, including:

Solving problems.

Developing new capabilities.

Leveraging best practices.

Standardizing practices.

‘Institutionalizing’ best practices.

Time saving.

Increasing skill sets.

Avoiding mistakes.

Creating new knowledge.

There are, however, a number of obstacles to participating in a community of interest, including the reliability and classification of information, technological problems such as connectivity, and ‘institutional mindset’ against information sharing. Making personal internet connections significantly enhances ability to share information. Personally knowing and trusting the individual from whom you are asking for information, or to whom you are sending information, helps information sharing. Much sharing of lessons, particularly across national boundaries, is via social networks could be risky. There can lack of security and chances of theft of information.

Many communities of interest are supported by forums that allow them to share their experiences. Participating in forums allows for reinforcing personal contacts to encourage the sharing of information. Examples of forums include training events, conferences, working groups, etc., or virtual forums online, including discussion groups and blogs.

Request for information

Some organizations offer a request for information service, where individuals requiring information on a particular topic can make a request and the lessons learned team will search the lessons learned information they have in order to respond to the request. The ability to respond to the request will often depend on priority of the issue raised during course of project development or authorized person demand.

Training

Training events at the beginning of project development, at the beginning of development phase, or as part of ongoing processing are good opportunities to engage staff on the benefits, opportunities and requirements of a lessons learned process as well as to inform staff about the latest lessons from the field of project development.

Information technology

There are several information technology tools that support the sharing of lessons and information, including:

Portals.

Databases

Knowledge repositories such as Wikipedia.

Blogs.

A technology solution can provide easy access of many different types of lessons learned information. However, the information stored by information technology must be latest otherwise there no use of sharing of information. So, information shared via information technology tools must be reviewed after some interval of time. That must keep up-to-date and latest information of lessons learned issue which provide latest guidance.

Publication

There are several ways to ensure lessons learned information reaches those within and external to the organization. Information should be regularly sent by:

Newsletters.

Reports.

Booklets/Handbooks/Leaflets/Posters.

Email Blasts.

Blogs/Bulletin boards.

LESSONS LEARNED THROUGHOUT SDLC

Lessons learned approach should incorporate in SDLC model to improve the efficiency of the project.

Lessons learned is the learning gained from the process of performing the project or during course of development of the project. Generally, most of the company avoids keep tracking of lessons learned. Only some of the company does lessons learned activities. This is also at the time of project close-out. But this should not be done.

Lessons learning process should given a proper time as efficiency of the project depends on the lessons learned. So, lessons learned should be incorporated as "Development Phase" of any SDLC model. Though this activities is also useful in development of the project. It improves the efficiency of the project.

Moreover, lessons learned should not be the close out process only. It is not the activity which is only done at the end of the project but it should be a continuous process which should be done throughout the project. Lessons can be identified and documented at any point during the project development life cycle. The reason for this described earlier.

The purpose of documenting lessons learned is to share and use knowledge derived from experience to:

Encourage the recurrence of desirable outcome

Stop the recurrence of undesirable outcome

Lessons learned should draw on both positive experience – good idea that improve project efficiency or save money and negative experience – lessons learned only after an undesirable outcome that has already occurred. Every documented lesson learned should contain following information.

All information of project and about the observer

A clear statement of observation

A background summary of how the lesson was learned

Conclusion how the lessons may be used in the future

At any point during the project life cycle, the project team and key stakeholders may identify lessons. Then lessons are analyzed, formalized and stored during project development life cycle.

Upon project completion a lessons learned activities should given the time of some days. So, the stakeholders can analyze on identifying project success and project failure. They can include recommendation to improve future performance of projects.

The ultimate purpose of documented lessons learned is to provide future project teams with information that can increase effectiveness and efficiency and to build on the experience that has been earned by each project during development period or at the time of end of the iteration of the project or at the end of the project.

When it disseminate properly lessons learned provide a powerful method of sharing ideas for improving work process, operation, quality, safety and cost effectiveness, etc. and helps improve management decision making and employee performance through every phase of a project. Lessons learned also helps to support some of the tougher times passed during the project’s life and helps future project managers avoid similar difficulties.

MYMODEL

As above described, Lessons Learned Team must be there to look after the lessons learned affairs throughout software development process.

We know that any software which is developed is passing through many stages of development. Software development is quite tuff and lengthy job to do. Lots of problems come across during the development of the software. Software development is a continuous process during which problem related to development arises and development team has to solve it. The type of the problem or issue raised during the development of different software may be different or same. If the issue or problem is of same type and repeatedly occurring then there will be waste of time to invest the time in finding the solutions. There must be some permanent solution of those problems.

LLMI – Lessons Learned Meeting at Initial Phase

LLME – Lessons Learned Meeting at End Phase

Figure 19 -- MYMODEL

Lesson learned document serve this purpose. Lessons Learned is there to facilitate the software development process. Though lessons learned are not only record of problems or issue or failure but success event is also recorded in lessons learned document so, that successor project would get benefit from these records.

In above depicted figure, researcher has tried to incorporate lessons learned to SDLC as a "Lessons Learned Process" throughout SDLC. It is also incorporate as a phase in SDLC.

Lessons Learned is the process where problems are identified throughout the project development process and solutions are provided that can be useful to the successor project development. In this process issues which are noticed to be best is also recorded in lessons learned for the successor project development.

Lessons learned process is the process which should occur during the whole software development life cycle. Lessons learned process should attach with all the phases of the software development life cycle, as lessons could be gathered from any of the phases of the software development.

All the phases of the software development should start with the lessons learn meeting as depicted in the above figure. In above figure it is indicated by LLMI. In this meeting all team members like development team members, lessons team members, and technical staff should remain present. This is the meeting where prior happened/recorded lessons learned issues should be discussed. Here the discussion of the issues would be related to the phase. What would be the best practice to follow to develop software is discussed in this meeting. How care should be taken to tentative issues which might arise during the phase of the development. All these matters are discussed in this meeting.

Then during the ongoing phase of the development decision to mould the project should be taken on the basis of the lessons learned. Development process is proceeding further. Then after if any new issues arise during development for which solution is not there in lessons learned document, then development team has to find the solution and record that issue for lessons learned.

The kind of issues or problems must be identified and recorded as described in the "Lessons Learned Process".

At the end of the phase again lessons learn meeting should be arranged that is called LLME to discuss about newly raised lessons learned issue which are recorded in the "Lessons Identified Templates". After discussion in the meeting, Lessons learned document should be prepared, which is known as "Lessons Learned Template".

Then this experienced solve issues should store at common repository so that team members can utilize this experience in solving the problems of current ongoing project.

As depicted in above figure there should be meetings arrange in the starting of the any of the SDLC phase and at the end of any of the SDLC phase.

Below is the description of the meeting how they should be arranged.

A) Lessons Learned Meeting in Initial of the Phase

All the previously experienced issues related to the concern phase are discussed in this meeting. Time allotted to this meeting is of approximately 45 minutes.

Purpose of the Lessons Learned Meeting

Lessons learned topic described from previous projects of similar kind, which are already recorded discussed in this meeting. The discussed issues should be related to the phase only.

So, team members get aware of issues which might be raised during the phase.

Participants of the Lessons Learned Meeting

All the stakeholders involved in the project can attend the meeting. Stakeholders can be project sponsor, development team and lessons learned team.

Facilitator of the Lessons Learned Meeting

Meeting should be managed by experienced facilitator to accomplish the objective of the meeting within the prescribed time.

Lessons Learned Meeting

1) Introduction and Ground Rules (Approx 10 minutes)

Review the original purpose, budget, timeline of the project.

Ground Rules:

Cell phones and laptop should be put aside so that every stakeholder can be a part of the meeting.

Project discussion is encouraged.

Criticism of people is not permitted.

Participation should not be destructive. It should inspire the development team.

Meeting should help in learning from the previous issue.

2) Discussion of Lessons Learned Issue: (Approx 30 minutes)

Issues related to the particular phase should be discussed.

Cause of that issue should be discussed.

Remedial action should also be discussed.

3) Close out of Lessons Learned Meeting: (Approx 5 minutes)

Clarify if any doubt is there with the stakeholders.

Encourage the development team to develop good quality project.

B) Lessons Learned Meeting in End of the Phase

All the newly raised issues are discussed in this meeting. Time allotted for this meeting is also of approximately 45 minutes.

Purpose of the Lessons Learned Meeting

The observations are identified and remedial actions are taken to solve the raised issue during the ongoing phase. All these fact are recorded as "Lessons Identified" during the Phase. Now in this meeting they should be verified and then converted into "Lessons Learned".

Participants of the Lessons Learned Meeting

All the stakeholders involved in the project can attend the meeting. Stakeholders can be project sponsor, development team and lessons learned team.

Facilitator of the Lessons Learned Meeting

Meeting should be managed by experienced facilitator to accomplish the objective of the meeting within the prescribed time.

Lessons Learned Meeting:

1) Introduction and Ground Rules (Approx10 minutes)

Review the original purpose, budget, timeline of the project.

Ground Rules:

Cell phones and laptop should be put aside so that every stakeholder can be a part of the meeting.

Project discussion is encouraged.

Criticism of people is not permitted.

Participation should not be destructive. It should inspire the development team.

Meeting should help lessons learned team to develop proper document of the Lessons learned issues of the ongoing phase.

2) Discussion of Lessons Learned Issue: (Approx 30 minutes)

Issues raised during SDLC to the particular phase should be discussed.

Cause of the issues should be discussed which helps in formulate Lessons Learned document.

Remedial actions should also be discussed which helps in formulate Lessons Learned document.

3) Close out of Lessons Learned Meeting: (Approx 5 minutes)

Clarify if any doubt is there with the stakeholders.

Encourage the development team to develop good quality project.

Lessons Learned Phase

This is the phase where the overall project should be analyzed. What gone well and what gone right for the project should be analyzed. Lessons Learned documents are prepared here and should be stored at global repository. Then after these lessons learned information should be made available to all the employee of the organization and also provision should be made to make it available to all the people engaged to software development profession.

Overall project analysis should be made here. Some of the facts related the project is collected here like.

What happened in this project?

Where were we beyond schedule?

Where were we on schedule?

Was the time allotted to the every phase adequate?

Did we correct define the goals for the project?

Was the cost is beyond the cost estimation?

How we personally feel after this project?

What did we learn?

Were all the parameters set by us gone well?

Above like questions should be discussed and find the answer. They should be recorded in the proper format as discussed above and should be stored.

Parallel Utilization of the Lessons Learned

FIGURE – 20 PARALLEL UTILIZATION OF LESSONS LEARNED

Above figure depicts the inter utilization of lessons learned. Lessons learned can be utilized parallel as above figure show that, three projects of same kind would ongoing parallels. As researcher discuss that lessons learned is continuous process during the time of development of any project, then lessons learned document prepared in one project can be utilized by another project also.

All the documents prepared during the any phase of the development can be utilized by another project which is ongoing same time. By doing so, management team can take better decision to develop the project fast as to complete in decided time with predefined fund. Development team can take advantage of the document prepared by lessons learned team to avoid any bug during development, which would again speed up the project development. So target would reach in time and also company would get This is the utility where lessons learned works best.

Cross Utilization Of Lessons Learned

PROJECT -- 1 PROJECT – 2

FIGURE – 21 CROSS UTILIZATION OF LESSON LEARNED

Lessons learned of project 1 is also utilized in project 2 also even they are of different type and not running at the same time. Lessons learned documents can be used any time in any project in future for reference.

This is also best utilization of lessons learned concept, as the documents prepared in any project can be utilized any time in future project.

Lessons Learned Issue regarding Phases of SDLC

There are lots of issues raised during the development of the project. All those issue which are important to be remembered for long term to be benefited to other forth coming projects, should included in lessons learned document. Some of the issues are described below.

I) Projects initiation and Planning phase

This is the first phase of the project development. In this phase identify the need for a new or improved system. Information requirements are identified and project has to meet this requirements. Customer defines need for the project and these needs are prioritized and translated into plan to develop the project.

Here, problems are identified and investigated further and development planning is design according to them. The project leader and team will produce specific plan to develop the proposed project, which the team will follow using the remaining SDLC phases.

Some issues need to include in lessons learned are given below.

1) Observation: A new project should be developed rather than making alteration of current project.

Discussion: The altered system is still not working properly. Same issue of security of information is there as before. Technology is improved to make the information secure but still the system is lacking in information security. Still there are loopholes in information security with the software which can’t make software reliable to use.

Effect on organization: As the information is not secured yet, there is no use of investing in new technology. It seems totally a waste of time and money of the organization. Still it needs to improve the project.

Analysis: By analyzing this issue, it is clear that it must be identified that the there must be checklist to identify whether there is need for new development of the project. Identify the factor demanding new project or continue with the current project. Like going through with the current software where there is lacking in features, it must be identified. Whether current software should be repaired or new software should be developed having required project.

It affects the whole project management system, if such an issue introduced during the project development. Almost the project would be fail. And the reason behind is just in failing the selection of whether to alter or develop new project.

Conclusion: Observation or raised issue must be checked and analyzed. Here, for this issue, find where the loopholes are in current system and develop a new system which is fully secured both in terms of software and hardware.

So, in initiation phase it must have clear that alteration of current system is worth or new system should develop with extra feature for current system. Otherwise it would be unfavorable for organization as lots of money invested in the project to alter and there is also a waste of time of all the personnel. Outcome is not as required by the organization. So all the requirement for the project initiation must be check before the starting of the project.

2) Observation: Lots of changes during the course of the project development as project scope are not properly understood.

Discussion: During the course of the project development, the lots of changes are required. These changes are due to lack of understanding of the project scope. Project scope must be known properly before the starting of the project. It is the base from where to start the project as project scope knows what you are supposed to be delivering at the end to the client, and what the boundaries of the project.

Effect on organization: Frequent change of the requirements in bulk would be dangerous for the project development. If project scope is not defined properly then project would be fail. There is loss in monitory terms and time.

Analysis: There could be two reasons for arising off this issue. One reason; does not understand the basic features of the project at the project initiation level by the project management team. Another reason; owner or user could not communicate his requirements to the project management team. Owner or user may not have knowledge regarding software or they might be not very clear about their project feature.

It would affect almost all the management plan of project development. Again they would redesign and it would a take lot of time. All the project management plans will require redesigning.

Conclusion: Both owner and project management team should discuss about the project scope at very early stage of the development, which will help the organization to save the time and money also. Statement of work is prepared by the project development team. Owner or user must have to go through this document and take interest in project development planning. One of the representatives from the owner side, who know which kind of project is required, has to take interest in development of the project.

3) Observation: Acquiring of new resources to facilitate the project, which are not required or less required.

Discussion: Requirement of new resources will depend on the project itself. The requirement can be of new technology or it can be of hiring skilled person or of training. Without analyzing properly of the requirement for the new resources, if it is acquire then it would affect the cost management plan and cost analysis plan of the project.

Effect on Organization: Yet it would affect the cost management plan and cost analysis plan of the project. It clearly shows that it also affect the cost of the project to be developed. Ultimately the project development cost would be high.

Analysis: As such kind of issue will affect the overall cost of the project; the money invested in acquiring the resources might be not useful at this time but can be useful in the forthcoming project. But as of now the project management team should not block the money but identify where the money should be properly invested.

Improper cost management and cost analysis can severely impact the project initiation, development and success. So, proper analysis is highly needed when the time comes to acquiring anything new for ongoing project or new project.

Conclusion: Acquiring new technology or hiring a skilled resource is depends on the analysis of the project need whether it is required or not. If a skilled resource is required for this project try to find out some alternatives like to give training to the personnel. These personnel will be useful in next project also. So, this kind of cost management should be done. If personnel hire then it would add extra cost to the project. If new technology is needed and if it is costly try to find out another way. If work can’t be done without the new technology then care must be taken in investing them.

One more thing can be done to reduce cost of the organization to hire personnel on contractual basis or give the contract to another company having new technology or skilled person.

4) Observation: Schedule management plan has got problem due to problem in hours counting of personnel.

Discussion: Problem found at schedule management plan. There is wrong counting of man hours in the document. The error is there, and it would affect at long term even when deliverable are decided. So, a single error at basic level will affect at very high level. So, higher level plan would go wrong. This might delay the project release.

Effect on Organization: Organization would not affect very highly by this issue. But surely if affect to some extent. The time is wasted by re-planning the affected project management plan. It could delay the release of the project to some extent.

Analysis: If man hours are not calculated properly; then it would affect another plan of the project development. All the documents depend upon the schedule management plan would prepare wrongly. Like, work breakdown structure is also wrongly prepared and deliverables are wrongly calculated. If it found at early stage then re-planning of project management can be done. It would delay the project completion and project release if found at very later stage.

Conclusion: The entire project management plan would be carefully prepared. A single issue would lead to the delay of project development and as well as project release.

5) Observation: Due to lack of communication skill project manager can’t explain the whole about the project to the team. Project management team doesn’t understand properly about the project scope so that they can prepare project development plan properly.

Discussion: Project management team needs information about the project to develop the project development plan. They directly do not meet owner or user, as they are not allowed to remain present in all meetings. So, they don’t know all about the project itself. They have to take help from the project manager. Now, the issue is that project manager does not have such communication skill. So, he does not make understand properly to the team about the project. Project development team can’t develop project management plan properly. He also does not communicate properly with customer who is owner of the project. He can’t make customer understand about what is required in project. In such scenario, project management plan would be weak and keeps on changing till the end of the project.

Effect on organization: It will take lots of time to develop the project management plan as team member don’t understand the project features properly. It delays the project development. As the project plan is weak, continuous changes will be there throughout the development process. Again changes will delay the project. So, this issue will affect the organization in terms of finance and good will. It’s waste the time of employee.

Analysis: Project development team members are unable to get information from project manager as he can’t explain properly about the features of the project. So, team has to try for development plan. Team members work on trial and error and prepare the development plan. This takes a lot time for development of documents. This plan is continuous change because of getting real understanding of the project throughout the development process. These changes will take lots of time. So this becomes time consuming. So project can’t develop at fixed dead line. It would delay the release of the project also. The success of the project will happen only then when requirements are clear to the development team. Otherwise this project will fail.

Conclusion: In such scenario, replace the project manager with the personnel with good communication skill. The person should one who can communicate with customer about their requirement and also explain these requirements to the team member to develop plan for the project development. If project manager is very good at management then also it would adversely affect. So, one or two person from the team member should remain present at the time of meeting or meeting should be arranged between customer and project management whole team.

So, by doing this risk of project failure would be minimized and project will also develop at right time.

II) Analysis Phase

Analysis is the next phase. During this phase, requirements are studied and structured in accordance with their inter relationship and eliminate any redundancies. Requirements are studied rigorously so that design can be build up in the next phase and time is not wasted in changing of the requirement. It would affect the whole process of development.

The issues which can be raised during this phase are given below:

1) Observation: Requirements are not brief properly so they are not understandable.

Discussion: Basic requirement are the root material on which the project can be build up. Without requirement project can’t build up. So, requirements are the main in development. If they are not properly defined then project can’t reach to success. So, it is necessary to have brief understanding of requirements. If requirements are not properly defined then that project might lead to failure, as the developed project is of no use. So before implementation for project, requirements must be in understandable form.

Effect on organization: If requirements are not totally understood and project is developed then it surely lead to project failure. There would be loss in financial terms and waste of time is there. This also damages the good will of the project development organization.

Analysis: To build good and working project, proper list of requirements are required. If any mistake is there then project would be inefficient. Requirements are the key factor for the success of the project. If it gathers well then all goes well and at the end efficient project is developed. But if requirements are not understood properly then there is lots of chance of failure of the project. Requirement gathering is an art. It must be gathered carefully. Needed requirement should be briefly understood from the customer. Otherwise it would create major problems in future.

Conclusion: It is required for all projects to know about the requirements. All the requirements should be known in prior to start the project. Those requirements are briefly understood as on this requirements the base of the project is positioned. To make the project successful and efficient it is mandatory for the developer to know the requirements in the beginning of the project.

2) Observation: Project leader does not break down the requirements at multiple levels or project leader does not have analysis power.

Discussion: Project leader must have capacity to analyse the requirement. If a web site is developed for e-commerce, project leader must have capacity to analyse what kind of requirements are there. The type of facility included is also asked by project leader to the owner of the website. It means how does it look, what does it do such kind of total information should be grabbed the project leader. Only an e-commerce website is required, is not the sufficient information to develop this website. There must be information included like what the environment is in which it is going to run. Which technology is required to run this website? All the information should be gathered and analyzed whether it is ok or not.

Effect on organization: if all the minute details are not gathered about the requirements then it would be difficult to manage the project. Because the information is raw material on which the project is developed. If requirement are not analyzed properly then customer might not satisfied with the developed project. The project might fail. Again affect organization profitability and reputation.

Analysis: Project development is not only based on primary requirement but to develop efficient project, detailed information should be gathered. To make very efficient project, project leader must have foresight vision or he/she can analyze the requirements. Project leader must have such experience to identify the basic needs of the project. If small details are not gathered which are prime need of the project then the project might not successful as it should be. So, project leader must have to do proper analysis of the project requirements prior the project development.

It could also happen that requirements keep on changing in bulk during the project development. That could lead to the lots of changes during in the development. Ultimately late delivery of the software would happen.

Conclusion: So, it is mandatory to analyze all the basic requirements. To get success in every project all and minute requirement should be clear during the project development process. Requirements needs to be taken care to develop highly efficient project.

If it requirements are changed during the development process then it could delay the project development and also release of the project would delay. It’s the project leader responsibility to analyze the requirements and according to the need of the customer prioritized them.

3) Observation: Customer/owner is not taking interest in the project development throughout the development process.

Discussion: The requirements are the basic building block of the project development. Requirements must be known to the development team prior to the project development. But it is not possible for owner to explain their entire requirements prior as they are not much clear about their requirement in starting. So, at development site one of the representatives from owner should have to remain present and should take interest in the project development to some extent. So, if project development team want to ask anything or show the deliverable it would be easy. Project development could be facilitate and at the end proposed project is exactly as the customer wanted to be. Else the project can’t develop smoothly and proposed project might not meet the expectation of the project.

Effect on organization: Due to the owner, project development organization has to suffer. Developed project might fail. So, it would be completely loss of money and waste of time.

Analysis: Customer or owner, who needs the proposed software, is the main source of information. The minute information related to the software needed while the software is developed. One of the members from the owner side who knows all the requirements of the project should remain present at development site. So any issue regarding information can be solved. During the development period if any changes required from the owner’s side, then also it would be easy because owner is in continuous touch with the project development. So, he/she knows about the progress of the project.

Project development team can represent the development or deliverables at all phase of the development process. So at the end, the software meets the requirement of the owner and it is as they wanted to build.

But owner is not taking interest in the project development as above said then at the end of the project development life cycle, software doesn’t meet the requirement of the owner and it might be of no use of the owner.

Conclusion: It is required for the owner or customer, who wants to develop proposed project; should remain present at the development site. He/she must have to take interest in development process. He/she can suggest the required changes during the development process if he/she remains present at the development site. If continuous presence is not there then developer does the work according to the prior defined requirements. At the end if owner or customer wants to change something like look of the front page of the website or functioning of the website, then it will take long time to change. So, it will very difficult to manage these changes at the end.

So, customer may not satisfy with the project and project might fail. So, to develop project according the requirement, customer must have to take interest in the development process and should remain present at the development site.

4) Observation: The development kickoff is made earlier or pushed earlier which lower the efficiency of the developer team and affect the overall project.

Discussion: To develop the project first it is necessary to have clear idea about requirements. Requirements gathering should be very carefully as a wring requirement would create wrong module or wrong software. So, to develop highly efficient software requirements are needed. If lacking in information regarding requirements about the software would lead to the poor quality of the software. If management push up the development team to start developing without the concrete information about the project, that would lead either to the project failure or very poor quality software.

Effect on Organization: This would lead to the ineffective development of the software. The software would be of low quality which will not have required features. If the continuous changes are made then also it would be time consuming. And it would lead to delay project development and release of the software. Profit of the organization would be affected.

Analysis: Project development should start after the gathering all the requirements and planning. After gathering the requirements, they are analyzed. After getting proper requirements they must have prioritized according to the customers need. Like in first prototype, project based on basic and high priority requirements. Then in next iteration the other requirements are cover up. This should be the management of information gathered as requirements. But sometimes happen that management pushes the development team to start the project when they are gathering the information about the project. Without the proper information, to develop the project would be very risky and would be time consuming as changes occurs during the project development. Team members have to work for the same thing again and again, so workload of the team members would be high. This lower the efficiency of the team members and the developed software is also of low quality.

Conclusion: Project manager should give some time to gather information. In time during requirement gathering management should not force to start the development. Requirement should arrange properly and then project development should start. Early development of the project, without proper requirements would lead to the project failure or poor quality project.

5) Observation: Project manager is lacking in providing inspiration to the development team.

Discussion: The project manager is the in-charge of the whole team. He/she is responsible to handle the whole team, so, he/she should be supportive of the whole team. If team members need project manager support in designing management plan he/she must be there, it team members need project manager support in project development he/she must help them. This is also the responsibility of the project manager. When continuous changes are there since beginning, team members would feel tensed. So, to make them tension free should be the main priority of the project manager. Because if team members are in tension then they can’t focus their mind in project development process and result couldn’t be achieved.

Effect on Organization: The project might lead to the poor quality as no team members are working efficiently due to constant changes since from starting. This would down the moral of the team members. That would affect the development of the project and inefficient software is developed.

Analysis: Project manager is the pillar of the project development team. He/she should highly support the team member especially when team members are in need. When team members need any support regarding software development then he/she used to impart their knowledge. But this only is not the responsibility of the project manager but when constant changes are there in software at that time team members feel frustrated. They need inspiration. So the project manager should be the source of inspiration for the team members. He/she must have to motivate the team members during the project development.

If project manager is lacking in providing inspiration then team members would be unable to give their best in the development of the project. Inspiration is the high need of the team member during the development of the project. If such thing happen in the starting of the project due to so much changes in the requirements then what would happen in the next coming phases. The mental condition of the team members surely affects the quality of the project.

Conclusion: Project manager is the leader of the project by the position. He/she should not be the leader by position but also be the leader in all aspect as his/her task is to support the team members. If project manager can’t support their team members when they need then it would adversely affect the project development. When team members feel tensed about the development process, it is the duty of the manager to inspire them , encourage them to get the best result.

III) Designing phase

In this phase the whole structure of the system is design properly. System is divided in subsystem and then how they interrelated with each other is also design in this phase. The whole structure of the system that how does it look? What does it do? Which platform is there to require running the application? How does it work? All these questions are solved and designing format is ready. Now basis on this development would start in next phase.

There are lots of issues regarding this phase those are described below.

1) Observation: Team members are lacking in co-operation due to personal disputes and problems.

Discussion: The project development is the group process and team work. Every one of the team member has to work in co-ordination and with co-operation. Co-operative work in project is necessary to develop high quality project. So, it is necessary to have co-operation among the team member of the project. If there is no co-operation among them due to disputes and personal problems then the project can’t go right. The project might lead to the failure or of very low quality project. The developed project might not meet the requirements of the proposed project. So, to develop efficient project team members have to work together with harmony and co-operation.

Effect on organization: The organization which has disputes among their team members; can’t run long. It has very short life span due to improper work done by team members. It will affect the good will of the company and creates hurdles in the development of the company.

Analysis: The project development is the task completed by unity of the team members. A single person cannot develop the project which has high quality. So, any organization must have united team which can co-operate with each other in developing the project. A large project needs co-operative work of team members. If they are lacking in co-operation with each other then it could be clearly predicted that the project will not get success. With such mentality in mind if team members would work then they can’t concentrate on their allotted task. So, the result will be poor. Ultimately, overall project would be poor regarding the efficiency. It might not meet the requirements described by the customer or user.

Conclusion: Regarding with this issue, project manager and organization management should involve in this matter and try to solve the issue or disputes among the team members. Otherwise organization would be affected badly. So, it is required to have good co-ordination and co-operation among the team members of the organization. There must be healthy relation among the team members of the organization.

2) Observation: Misunderstand the customer requirement to develop the design of the project. This is due to lack of customer’s knowledge that what they want in the software.

Discussion: Misunderstand the customer’s requirement is main issue in the software development. When customer doesn’t know anything about the computer system at that time the chances of misunderstanding would be high. This would also increase the chances of failure. If customer is not able to express their requirements then there must be a lots of questions should be asked and also in brief to make them understand. This would help to gather proper information from the customer.

Effect on Organization: Rework would be there for the team members associated with the project development. Increase time and cost for the development of the project. This would the loss in profitability of the organization.

Analysis: It is very common issue in the software development field. Generally, customers don’t have the knowledge regarding software development. Also they don’t know which type of software they required. Usually this causes the software to fail. Customers are not aware of the requirement of the software so, it would be very difficult to get information about what customer want in their software. Misunderstanding like, if a customer want website for expanding their business and they just want to advertise their product on the internet. They just don’t know about to specify that e-commerce facility also should be there to in their website or even they don’t know about such technology. So, when functional requirement specification does not include this then designer who develop the software design also design according to the requirement documents prepared in analysis phase.

This could lead to the increase in cost to develop the project as again this requirement could deeply analyzed and document is prepared then design is created so, it would take also extra time to complete this process. So, time is also increase to complete this project which could lead to the late development of the project. So, late release of the project would be there.

Conclusion: To understand the software requirement would be the key factor to get success in any software to be succeeded. Without understanding the requirements properly development should be started. If it is done so, then surely that project will not get success and it will be of low quality. If team members are unable to understand the requirements of the customer then meeting must be arranged between customer and development team. Team members should clarify their doubt regarding requirement in the meeting and then go ahead with the development.

3) Observation: Using incorrect or out of date information in the development of the project.

Discussion: To develop the good quality project, the project development process should be done in co-ordination. The team members have to work coordinately. Here, entering in the designing phase, all the documents should be prepared in the analysis phase to match the current changes made by customer. All the documents must be up to date to their current status like system requirement specification, functional requirements specification. If it is not done even by mistake then software can’t work properly as desired by customer, as the outcome of the software is completely different from the desired output.

Effect on organization: This kind issue has direct impact on organization’s good will. As to develop high quality software co-ordination is must among the team members. Otherwise software can’t develop properly and caused for software failure. This would be loss of profit and loss of time also.

Analysis: There can be some reason behind this issue to be raised.

If personnel could not attend the important project meeting and he/she was not informed about the changes are made in the project during the meeting.

Lack of concentration of the team member during meeting session would lead to record incorrect information to be recorded.

Documents are not updated due to pressure of work so, correct and up to date information is not there in the document.

Due to above reason incorrect and up to date information cannot be used in the development process and software which is developed would not exact as wanted or described by the customer.

Conclusion: As above described scenarios are there to use incorrect or out of date information in the project development. So, it is the duty of the project manager to see that all the team members have up to date information regarding the developing project. All the documents must be maintained properly containing current information regarding ongoing project.

4) Observation: Organization management does not support constant changes due to budget limitation.

Discussion: There is a specified time period is allotted to analyze the requirements give by the customer to develop the project. After analyzing the requirement, designing phase is started. All the requirements specification documents must be prepared prior to the designing phase.

In designing phase, if constant changes are made by customer would delay the project development. This could also increase the development cost of the project.

Effect on Organization: If organization does not support, the changes made by the customer in between of the project development then customer would not be satisfied with software he/she is going to get after development.

And if organization support then profitability ratio will be down due to increased project development cost due to constant changes made by customer.

Analysis: All the requirements are analyzed properly by the project management team prior starting the development process. If it is not done properly then constant changes are there to be made.

Customer can have new idea for the project so; he/she can also demand to change the project in middle of the project development process.

In such scenario, ask the organization management or committee to make the changes, if they approve the changes than team members would go ahead with the changes.

Conclusion: Organization management should analyze the changes to be made. If it is worth to change and fit in the cost base line made for the project, then should give permission to make changes in the project.

5) Organization: Failure of the project development team to be with pre-decided time line due to continuous changes made in between of the ongoing process of the project development.

Discussion: If constant changes are approved by the organization management than team members have to go with it. But it is very job to make changes in current ongoing process of development. So, it will take long to develop the project.

Constantly changing the project would lead to frustrate the team member and decrease the efficiency of the development team to do their work. It will also increase the development time for the project.

Effect on Organization: Organization would be able to deliver the project very late. As due to constant changes from customer’s side would make it delay. It will also increase the development cost for the ongoing project.

There are also chances of poor quality software due to boredom acquired by the team members due to constant changes made in the ongoing project.

Analysis: If constant changes are there to made, it would be tedious job for the development to do. It would stun the efficiency of the developer so; they can’t focus on their work, which might lead to the mistake in the project development.

So, constant changes are to be made with current ongoing project at any stage would be time consuming process. This could lead the project to be developed at very late or it does not meet the decided time line of the project.

Conclusion: By making constant changes in the ongoing project the team members lose their focus and concentration from their work. They can’t give their best to the development task. So, the developed project would be of poor quality.

Constant changes would lead the project to be delayed in their development process. So, late release would be there.

IV) Development and Testing phase

Actual implementation would be there. All the design now converts into coding. And real software is developed which can run and give the output accordingly.

1) Observation: Team members are not doing well as they are not having skill with particular technology and tools which is used in ongoing project.

Discussion: If project is developed in latest technology available then it is an obvious problem with personnel working with the project; that they cannot give their best input to the project. Then the quality of the project would be very low. Yet they don’t know much about the technology, they have learn first and then implement it. It would also take lots of time to develop the project. And also this project is not reliable.

Effect on Organization: Such scenario might lead the project to the failure. This will affect the company’s goodwill. So, this could cause the biggest problem for the company.

Analysis: If the project is based on e-commerce, then latest technology is going to be used in the project. Team members are not aware of this technology. Since they are learning the technology from starting of the project but they don’t acquire expertise with the technology so it might lead poor efficiency of the project. Here, with the e-commerce project user’s information security is most important. If project is poor at security level then there is no use of developed project. And project might fail.

So, in this case rather expert personnel should hire or give the training to the current personnel in the beginning of the project. So, this lacking in knowledge of latest technology would overcome.

Conclusion: There can be two options to overcome this problem. One is to hire expertise personnel to the company or second is to train the personnel of the company. Choose one of the options by doing cost analysis. The option which give best result to the organization and beneficial to the organization should be chosen. There can be another option of this issue to hire any personnel on contract basis which would be again cost effective to the company.

2) Observation: Development started earlier without completing design of the software would lead the project with lots of mistake or might lead to project failure.

Discussion: If development started before completing system designing there would be lost of problem in the development. As development requires system design document which could contain the format of whole system. So, if that format is not ready and development is started earlier then there must be continuous changes are there at the development time. That could lead the project to be developed with poor quality.

This poor quality of the project might lead to the project failure.

Effect on Organization: Software would be developed with continuous changes made at development time. This would lead the poor quality project, as mistakes might be there in software coding.

Too much mistakes could lead the project to be failed. Development cost would be very high so, profitability ratio would be decrease.

Analysis: As development is very crucial part of software development. it is actual implementation period where all the requirements are put into coding. Real software is created, which is going to be used for business or any purpose for which it was developed.

To develop software bug free and error free, raw material like whole system design must be generate prior. This system design contains how the software look, what does it do, its functioning, relation among different modules etc. If all these information are there then software can be smoothly developed. Not many changes are made during the development phase.

But if development started earlier before completing whole system designing, then it would lead to continuous changes during development. The chances of acquiring error in the software would be very high.

Conclusion: Development must be started after completing the entire system designing format and completing all the documents. This would lead to smooth development of the project. If designing documents are not ready and started off the development would lead to lots of changes in the coding during development phase.

3) Observation: Due to spent lots of time in analysis and designing, developing is done so fast to reach the deadline which cause failure of the project.

Discussion: As lots of time is spent in analysis and designing phase, then it is necessary to make hurry in the rest of the phase to develop the project in a decided time line. So, the development should have to be done speedily, which could be the cause to retain the mistake within the coding. If errors are many, that project is of no use. That is failure of the software. In rushed environment developer can’t concentrate on their work. They are not at peace of mind. They are under stress and make mistake in software development.

Effect on Organization: As development is done in too much of hurry, software must have lots of errors. So, that project may not work properly and meet the customer’s requirement. Inefficiency of the software lead to the software failure.

Analysis: Project development process is done step by step. Particular time slot is allotted to every phase of the development. But due to any reason, if starting phase consume more time than decided time than rear phases must suffer from mistakes s they must process and completed so much speedily to meet the deadline fixed prior to complete the software.

This speedy work in developing stage could make lots of errors in the project, some error could be rectified and some could not identify even in hurry. So, this could lead inefficient project development itself. Project would be fail due to lots of error in it.

So, it must check that any phase is not taking more time than allotted. If it so, then team member are informed to do the work f