Tài liệu Module 7: Release Milestone pdf

Change control allows you to track, capture, and document changes to the solution as development progresses „Provides central access for all project-related material „Ensures that develo

7

At the end of this module, you will be able to

„ Understand the infrastructuredevelopment process

„ Prepare for deployment

„ Perform effective solution testing

„ Use change control processes

Lessons

1 Principles and Concepts

2 Developing Phase Outline

3 Validating the Technology

4 Developing the Proof of Concept

5 Performing Preproduction Testing

6 Performing Pilot Testing

Lesson 1:

Principles and Concepts

The principles behind the developing phase and how they enable you to achieve the release milestone

„Perform as an ongoing activity

„Develop contingency plans based on known risks and their level of impact

„Escalate high-impact risks to the external audience

Risk assessment is an important ongoing activity It is not an event Risks affecteverything from planning, schedules, and communications, to developmentactivity itself Identify and communicate risks to the team periodically

Change control allows you to track, capture, and document changes to the solution as development progresses

„Provides central access for all project-related material

„Ensures that development and testing efforts are not lost

„Allows for rollback if errors are made in subsequent versions

„Divides the development process into manageable parts

Change control enables the team to break the development process intomanageable parts, mitigate problems, and fall back to the last known goodconfiguration if the mitigation fails

The project team must be able to determine the who, what, why, where, when,and how of proposed changes The team must be able to assess the risk andimpact of the change and have a mechanism for tracking the changes that havebeen implemented

By using change control, the test team knows that the components of the buildwon’t change during the testing process In other words, for any given build, theenvironment is contained (unchanged) versus dynamic (changing constantly)

„Makes known all issues that team must resolve

„Validates against the functional specification

„Performs regression testing (whether the solution breaks anything in the existing environment)

„Determines whether the solution requires supplemental components (updated drivers, dynamic-link libraries, or service packs)

„Captures user behavior to test against unstated expectations

The testing team is responsible for making all issues known It is then up to theteam to resolve those issues and communicate the resolution back to testing.This is done so that the issue-tracking system that testing maintains can beupdated to reflect the current state of the build

Is this solution built according to the functional specification? That is thequestion that the test team is trying to answer when it validates the solutionagainst the functional specification

Regression testing is used to make sure that the current build of the solutiondoes not break what is already there

Testing is vital to the success of the project If the team is to deploy the element

to 40,000 workstations, for example, one issue resolved in the lab saves 40,000problems after deployment

Identify Issues and Record Them

Review Issues Each Day

Resolve Issues

Move Forward

Testing documents the issues as it finds them The testing team member shouldadd an issue to the issue-tracking mechanism with an estimation of the severity

of that issue and a description of the steps that it takes to reproduce it

The development lead prioritizes the issue using a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 beingthe worst and 4 being a trivial issue Then the lead assigns it to the developerresponsible for that feature for resolution The worst possible issue is one with aseverity of 1 and a priority of 1 This is an issue that crashes the solution andmust be tracked down and resolved

The information the tester documents during the issue-tracking process isinvaluable to the training and support staff It shows them the history of thesolution, the problems encountered during development, and the resolutions

Identify key audiences and messages

Prepare users, management, support, and administrators for what will come, when, and why

Set expectations by discussing the good and bad elements

Improve chance of success by increasing project support

Communications during the development phase is more nebulous than in otherphases because so much depends on the complexity of the project, organizationdynamics, and so on A review of best practices found the following:

„ The communications plan must remain flexible It will almost alwayschange because of various circumstances surrounding the project

„ The project team should continually review the plan and raise issues to keystakeholders, who will have the most input into changes in the plan

„ If the communications plan has been fully developed, projectcommunications is a simple matter of telling targeted groups what they need

to hear, when they need to hear it For example, during piloting you willdeal only with pilot issues and only communicate them to people affected

by the pilot, rather than to the entire enterprise

„ The team should continually track the effectiveness of the communications,which amounts to a scaled-down project review after each major

communication

Gain Commitment

to a Clear Purpose

Review and Validate Plans and Strategies

Define and Agree upon Success Criteria

Begin Development Processes

Clear objectives, mutual accountability, and responsibility are key

Before delving into the development process, everyone must be on the samepage Members of the extended team must all buy in to the goals and objectives

of the project and understand not only what they must accomplish, but also theimportance of their contribution and how it affects the entire effort

Documentation is crucial for future communications, training, implementation,and support Without an understanding of the overall process, those responsiblefor development may see this as a distraction from other work

Plans may require “no user interaction” during implementation because of theend users’ lack of technical knowledge If the development team doesn’t fullyunderstand that requirement, users may receive a prompt or be required tomodify the configuration in some way before they can use the new technology

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Lesson 2:

Developing Phase Outline

The organization of the process model developing phase and the milestones and deliverables that must be achieved

Release Milestone

Deployment Complete

Vision/Scope Approved

PL A

N

I G N N

L O I G

E

N Project Plan Approved

Agreement on

documentation,communications

technologyfrozen

At the release milestone, the team will have tested and piloted the solution andwill be prepared to perform a deployment The team also develops trainingmaterial and documentation, and prepares installation scripts and processes inadvance of the deployment

Technology Validation Complete

Proof of Concept

Complete

Pilot Complete Preproduction Test Complete Release

Each of these phases, and the tasks associated with them, is described later inthis module

„ Technology validation complete To achieve this interim milestone, the

team evaluates the technology against the functional specification in anisolated, clean environment

„ Proof of concept complete Here, the technology is integrated into an

isolated lab environment that closely simulates the production environment

„ Preproduction test complete To achieve this interim milestone, the team

tests all the elements created during development as a whole and validatesthem against the functional specification Think of this as a rehearsal of thesolution

„ Pilot complete This interim milestone can be thought of as an “opening

night,” where the team introduces the solution to the productionenvironment for the first time and installers, systems support staff, and endusers get an opportunity to work with it

Product management

Program management Development

project tracking; updated plans Solution and documentation

Solution test; issues identification;

documentation test; updated testing plan Rollout checklists; updated rollout and pilot plans;

site preparation checklists Training; updated training plan; user communications

The members of the MSF team have the following responsibilities during thisphase:

„ Product management Primarily responsible for developing and delivering

communications to the user community outside the project team

„ Program management Responsible for managing the functional

specification and ensuring that the solution developed during this phasemeets those specifications When the original expectations are larger thanthe team can meet, program management must work with the othermembers of the team to modify the functional specification to meet thebusiness goals as well as the constraints of the project

„ Development Responsible for the actual development work of all technical

aspects of the solution This role is generally composed of severalindividuals with skill sets appropriate for the different tasks that must beperformed during this phase

„ User education Responsible for documenting the solution, developing,

purchasing, or modifying training material, maintaining the training plan,and communicating and advocating for the users and their requirements

„ Testing Responsible for testing each aspect of the solution, making issues

known to the appropriate member or members of the team, testingdocumentation, and managing the testing plan

„ Logistics management Responsible for developing the rollout and site

preparation checklists, and updating the deployment and pilot plans

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Lesson 3:

Validating the Technology

How to determine if the technology can work

„Look at the technology

„Manually install or configure technology (in ideal conditions for the technology, rather than matching production environment)

„Document what must be done to make the technology work

„Begin to identify and document issues and technical risks

„Update the master project schedule based on better understanding of risks and issues

„Begin solution development process

The technology validation complete interim milestone ensures that the newtechnology meets the criteria outlined in the functional specification

„Present your results to the class

Refer to the lab manual for instructions on completing this activity

„Develop implementation procedures

„Automate deployment and installation processes

„Test the solution and processes

„Develop deployment checklists

„Develop operations and management procedures

The proof of concept complete interim milestone is not complete until the teamhas ensured that the solution will coexist in a simulation of the product

environment

Freeze dates

Walk-through

External Freeze Date

Internal Freeze Date

Development Process

The external freeze date is the last opportunity for stakeholders outside the MSFteam to modify the solution Any changes at this point must have minimalimpact, however This is also an opportunity to aid the communications processand gain buy-in from users before the development effort proceeds The internalfreeze date is the last opportunity for members of the team to modify thesolution The user requirements walk-through may fall on or just before theexternal freeze date

The project team should not view this as an opportunity to introduce newrequirements, but rather as an opportunity to identify critical elements to thesuccess of the project that may not be known Avoid the temptation to engage

in “scope creep.”

Infrastructure development isthe process of using regularbuilds to convert functionalspecifications and plans into acomplete, deployment-readysolution

Testing

Validate Against Milestone Criteria

Development

Change Control

Vision/Scope Approved Release

Deployment Complete

Project Plan Approved 1

2 3

Periodic Builds

Developing is the process of transforming the functional specification and plansfrom the previous phases into a deployment-ready solution, with all of itscomponents Throughout this process, each team member must maintain a

“zero-defect mindset.” What the team develops here will be deployed later on alarger scale, so each seemingly small issue in the lab can translate to a muchlarger problem during deployment

At each step in the development process, and for each element being developed,this process will be used The process begins with the team developing orcreating the elements of the solution When the development effort is complete,the team member(s) responsible “check in” the element to change control, andthe member(s) responsible for testing evaluate the element against the successcriteria If the solution element passes both testing and validation, it isconsidered part of the final solution If, however, it fails either testing orvalidation, it returns to development for further work These steps in the process(that is, change control, testing, and validation) are described elsewhere in thismodule

Lab

„Using the Electronics Source Corporation project scenario, describe the simulated production environment that the project team will need to create for the proof of concept

„Present your results to the class

,Q#VPDOO#WHDPV=#

Refer to the lab manual for instructions on completing this lab

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Lesson 5:

Performing Preproduction Testing

The process for confirming that the solution will

integrate into the production environment

„Test as much of the entire solution as practical prior to pilot test

„Evaluate against success criteria

„Complete site preparation checklist and procedures

„Complete implementation procedures, scripts, load sets, and checklists

„Complete training material

„Resolve support and issue problems

The preproduction test complete interim milestone is not complete until theteam ensures that everything developed to deploy the solution is fully tested andready

problem-„Provide backup and recovery or fallback procedures as called for in the business continuation plan

Installation procedures and scripts will help you automate the deployment effortfor greater efficiency The degree to which you will be able to automate a givenprocess will depend in great part on the number of times the team will performthe process and on the skill and/or knowledge of those involved

„Review the constraints of the training and deployment plan

„Reevaluate risk and refine the training plan

„Develop supplemental material (cheat sheets and frequently asked questions)

„Create, validate, and acquire (when applicable) courseware

„Develop training preparation checklist

„ The training and deployment plans often define constraints on the actualtraining material For example, the deployment plan may allow only a singleday of training on the technology

„ The training plan may be modified to reflect changes made duringdevelopment

„ The technical development staff and pilot participants can provide insightfor supplemental course material, like frequently asked questions (FAQs)and resolutions for common problems

„ The training staff may identify and evaluate various off-the-shelfcourseware that fits within the constraints of the deployment and plan Forexample, the user education team members may have to incorporatesupplemental material to suit the individual project, while condensing athree-day course into one or two days to fit the schedule

„ Develop a checklist to set up the training facility and ensure the availability

of all materials necessary for training