Essay: Effective Project Management - An Overview" (48 Characters)

The Unified Process and Comfort Quilts Limited

Discuss about the Effective Project Management Methodologies Process.

Adaptive methodologies are methodologies that were developed to substitute the traditional methods of system development that followed a predictive approach. Adaptive methodologies were formulated to be used for projects that evolve as the system is developed through a cycle pf phases. Adaptive methodologies adapt to the changes in requirements for projects which are started within uncertain requirements (Icasas, 2014). Adaptive methodologies emphasize on team work where every team member is involved in the development of the project though a special role assigned to that team member. This helps build confidence in team members involved in the development of a project (Olik, 2017). There are many types of adaptive methodologies but this report focuses on The Unified Process (UP) and how it can be used be suited for the development of the Comfort Quilts Limited.

The unified process is a process through which a team performs a set of activities aimed at transforming the requirements of a customer to a fully working software system. The unified process is not a definite process which has a set of rules and guidelines which are supposed to be strictly followed but it’s a customizable framework which can be customized by adding or removing a set of activities on the basis of the needs brought about by the customer and the project, and the resources that are available for the development of the project.

The unified process is an adaptive framework that uses the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to help simplify the project thus making easy for the development team to understand any complexities that may arise in defining requirements of the software (Scott, 2001). Use of UML helps the team of developers to build models that visualize the architecture of the system by showing the structure and the behavior of the system. UML also helps in the actual implementation of the system and documentation of the project as the project continues.

• The unified process is use case driven. A use case is a sequence of actions that are performed by different actors and internally by the system itself to produce results to achieve a user a goal set by the actors. The actors can be people who are the end users of the system or external systems that interact with the system. For Comfort Quilts Limited, the actors are the customers, suppliers, managers among other end users that interact with the system. The use cases are derived from the end users view or perspective of the system thus the client feels comfortable as he can understand the requirements of the proposed system through the use case diagram. The use cases are expressed in natural language to make it easy for members in the development team and the client team to understand. Use cases are easily understood as they solve complex requirements into less complex requirements thus it’s easy to trace the requirements throughout the development life cycle.
• The unified process is architecture-centric. The architecture of a system is the fundamental organization of the whole system. For the develop of Comfort Quilts Limited Information System, architecture will be the fundamental foundation on which the system will be developed. The development team must work to ensure that the development of the system must be done to achieve the desired architecture of the system while addressing the use cases to get the key aspects of the system. Architecture of the proposed system is very important to the development of the project because of the following reasons;
• Helps stakeholders for example the development team to get the bigger picture.
• Helps organize the development effort of the development team.
• Helps facilitate possibilities for reuse of different components of the system.
• Helps manage an evolving system.
• Helps guide use cases which drive the architecture of a system.
• The unified process is incremental and iterative

Iteration is a subdivision of the whole project that is released internally to the development team or externally to Comfort Quilts Limited. End of an iteration results to a working version of the system. The system improves in functionality incrementally with every iteration that is completed.

The unified process is able to adapt to changes in requirements as the system is developed iteratively. With each iteration, the development team is able to assess and get a review from the client. The feedback can be used to continually improve the previous iterations or can be incorporated in the next increments thus making it easy to deal with uncertainties that arise in changes in requirements (Scott, 2017).

The iterative approach of developing the system followed by the unified process makes it easy for the development team to focus on the most critical risks that arise in the early stages of the development. The risks can be technical risks, architectural risks or requirement risks.

Development of a project is done through a sequence of cycles where at the end of every cycle, a new version of the system is released. Every cycle is divided into phases. At the end of every phase a milestone is achieved (Qureshi, 2017). The four phases in every cycle of the unified process are;

The inception phase is the phase the development team and the client team work to determine and establish whether it is viable to undertake the project.

The elaboration phase is the phase that the project team will determine the ability of the development team to develop the proposed Comfort Quilt Limited System given the schedule constraints, financial constraints including resources and other constraints that may arise when the project commences.

The construction phase is the phase the actual development or building of the proposed Comfort Quilts System is done incrementally and iteratively to deliver a working and better version of the system with each increment.

The transition phase is the final phase on which the Comfort Quilts information system will be deployed for use by the end users.

The unified process is the most suited adaptive methodology as it enables modelling of the proposed system using the unified modelling language which will help in decomposing the requirements of the system into structural and behavioral requirements of the Comfort Quilt Limited system.

References

Icasas, P., 2014. 5 More Effective Project Management Methodologies. Easy projects. Available at: https://explore.easyprojects.net/blog/5-effective-project-management-methodologies [Accessed October 20, 2017].

Olik, A., 2017. How to Choose the Right Project Management Methodology. Active Collab LLC. Available at: https://activecollab.com/blog/project-management/how-to-choose-the-right-project-management-methodology [Accessed October 20, 2017].

Qureshi, A., 2017. Project Management Methodologies: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginner’s. Task Que. Available at: https://blog.taskque.com/project-management-methodologies/ [Accessed October 20, 2017].

Scott, K., 2001. Overview of the Unified Process. Inform IT. Available at: https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=24671&seqNum=7 [Accessed October 20, 2017].

Scott, L., 2017. What is Adaptive Project Management? PM blog. Available at: https://www.esi-intl.co.uk/blogs/pmoperspectives/index.php/what-is-adaptive-project-management/ [Accessed October 20, 2017].