There are many aspects to product development, and many processes have been developed to enforce the importance of following a process to ensure success.  Many companies have also developed their own processes, and most processes focus on one specific area of product development (e.g., requirements, design, data modelling, or code generation). 

 

Datamac does not replace existing processes but complements them by providing assistance in defining critical information that can be utilized to define product features, priorities, work packages, and to track progress in a proactive manner to ensure success.

 

The missing component of most product development processes is in the linking of product development priorities and requirements with development plans.  Datamac provides an efficient suite of tools to enable this linkage.

 

The benefits of using Datamac for managing you product development process include

• Clear priorities for product development release plans
• Identification of key features and their requirements
• Development plans that trace fully to key features and requirements
• Monitoring of development teams to ensure plans are implemented on time and on budget
• Early warning alerts to notify key stakeholders of possible development problems
• Key performance metrics on product development program status

Datamac provides a balance for managing the often conflicting priorities of the 3 critical elements of product development – Features (scope), Schedule (time), and Cost (resources and budget), as depicted in the following diagram.

For many companies, features, schedule, and cost are not well balanced.  This is not usually for lack of process, sometimes it’s due to too much process – commonly referred to as not being able to see the forest for the trees! 

 

Datamac balances the focus on features, through clear definition of requirements and their relative priorities; schedule, through well defined feature teams and work packages that are tied back to specific requirements; and costs, through measurable goals and standards by which the product health can be continually monitored and evaluated – all resulting in increased quality for the project.

 

A typical product plan doesn’t balance these key elements due to many factors.  Often, it’s the competitive sense of urgency that drives time to market.  There is a solid business plan that has been thoughtfully created with realistic delivery goals, and senior management want it done faster!  This is a paradox since delivering the best possible product late to market is basically a waste of resources and can lead to a company’s downfall.  There must be a balance between features, schedule and cost to ensure this doesn’t happen. 

 

The pressure to get the product built also forces development to often start too early.  Again, this is a balance.  Development in this context means the real work of coding an n-tier application.  Developers can’t wait to start this work.  Often there isn’t a clear architecture plan or specifications that can be tied back to requirements before the work actually starts.  So what results is a product that is in a constant state of change as the core architecture components are also evolving.  What should happen is that key features should be identified and prioritized that are needed to drive the initial development of the product, while critical core components are being built.  These include application architecture design and standards, security model design and approach, UI framework design and standards, prototype plan, and core feature plan.  The most important benefit of using Datamac is that development can actually start early to produce visible deliverables for senior management, since the critical features are documented quickly to drive overall development.  Where existing process for rapid development are already defined, these can be leveraged for each new product development project.  Where these are not defined, they must be build early in the product development timeline, but the message here is that they don’t all have to exist for product development to begin. 

 

If this rings true with your company, or you need help utilizing an efficient product development process, don’t delay, contact Datamac today.  An initial consulting review of existing processes can help you decide what your company needs to ensure success.  It’s an investment that will pay dividends!