Keys To Effective Project Planning
Proper and thorough planning is key to the success of any project. Taking the time to define and write down the project requirements helps clarify expectations, uncover potential risk areas, develop proper solutions and, in the long run, saves time and money.
Without a clear understanding or agreement of what the project's goals are, who is responsible for what, what the project must do and how it must do it, a project will almost certainly require rework during development – causing added expense and completion delays.
By writing the requirements, both the client and developer are forced to think through the application and clarify any confusion at the very earliest stage, before development begins.
Requirement documents include detailed descriptions of all the features and functions and serve as the guideline (blueprint) for the development of the application. The document will:
- describe the applicable business rules;
- document responsibilities and authorized communications;
- detail what features will be included;
- detail how features should operate;
- describe any specific design requirements;
- detail site usability requirements;
- help the project team find faults and specify modifications; and
- help testers to identify tests required to determine whether the application is functioning correctly.
There are two types of requirements, functional and non-functional. Functional requirements are what the website must do and non-functional requirements are how the website will do it. For example, functional requirements include specific features that must be included (e.g. a part number search) and the non-functional requirements include the performance and design constraints. Non-functional requirements are generally more subjective and difficult to test while functional requirements are easily qualified and tested; they are either met or not met.
For each function the web application must perform, the requirements must answer the following questions:
- What is the function supposed to accomplish?
- What are the types and sources of information the function will accept?
- What is the process and logic for the operation?
- What is the format and destination of the results?
Quality of output depends on the quality of input and, for a web application, it all starts with a well thought-out requirements document that addresses the needs of all parties involved – client, developer and end-user.
Refer to our client questionnaire for some important questions that will help you organize and identify your website requirements. Download the Client Questionnaire document in PDF format
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