Golden Rules for Building Great Software

Building great software has always been a tough task, but it becomes even more complex today. True to Orcanos’ commitment to excellence in the field of ALM 2.0, we have been building our QPack solution and our company in the past five years in order to help you develop great software. We have been putting a lot of effort and paying meticulous attention to every step we take, while trying to innovate in our own field.
As a result of this hard work, you can now benefit from 10 points that will help an ALM project owner lead an organization through the complete Application Lifecycle Management solution. This method has also been our own decisive success factor.
So here are ten golden rules for building great software:

1. Gain Management Skills: You can learn most of the skills needed in order to be a good manager. The management skills required include proper planning, execution and follow ups on tasks. Selection of the right steering team is also part of the management skills you need, as you will be required to empower your team to complete their tasks without your attention.

2. Have an Executive Sponsor: An executive sponsor is an executive manager who owns the ALM project in your organization but is also the one who pays the bills. Attendees who act as executive sponsors at kickoff meetings demonstrate management support for both the project leader and the ALM effort. The executive sponsor has the authority to resolve impasses that occur during the implementation project

3. Invite the Right People: Make sure all the right people attend the initial meetings. Overloading those meetings with a mix of people may create early conflicts while the first stage is all about brainstorming and rethinking your existing status. Bring subject matter experts whose advice is valuable for the discussions, as well as those individuals whose approval is mandatory in the decision making process. Make sure that decision makers not only have the authority to make decisions but also have the will to do so.

4. Assign People to Roles: Every person in the steering team is assigned to a specific role. In addition to the ALM project leader who plans and conducts the steering meetings, there is the executive sponsor, and a scribe who records decisions and unresolved issues. The ALM project owner should make sure each one of these individuals understands and plays his or her assigned role.

5. Do the Mandatory Pre-Work: It is important for the ALM project owner to ensure that everyone does the pre work prior to the actual Go-Live stage. Evaluating the solution according to pre defined success criteria is critical in order to shorten the evaluation stage. Learn yourselves first and identify the most critical issues you want to resolve. Make sure there is enough time for all the members of the steering team to review the material they need to respond to. Make sure you get feedback on critical issues first and then on the rest. Contact your steering team members periodically to make sure all decision makers are communicating well with each other.

6. Consider Pre-Meetings: For those who are new to the ALM world or to leading such a project, the ALM project owners should conduct a short training session prior to the first meeting. This will help the steering team understand the benefits of the ALM solution, the importance of the pre-work, the roles and the rules, the meeting processes and the consensus approach to decision making.

7. Obey the Rules: To ensure an orderly conduct of an ALM project, certain ground rules need to be in place. These rules are non negotiable and should be reviewed with the steering team before starting the evaluation of the ALM solution. Some of the standard ground rules are: Stick to the agenda; Discuss one topic at a time; Stop the project meetings in case a key participant leaves or is not attending; All decisions are either “yes” or “no”; Be open to all ideas; Treat all the decision makers as equal.

8. Go for Consensus: Decisions should be consensus-driven and simply be put to a vote. ALM projects involve all stakeholders in the organization, so leaving an important stakeholder out could disrupt the necessary information flow. Consensus-based decisions require participants to prefer the overall interests of the organization over individual interests. Consensus means decisions are supported both during the evaluation and after Go-Live.

9. Ensure Mutual Respect: It is important that ALM implementation will be conducted in an atmosphere of fairness and mutual respect. It is the ALM project owner’s duty to ensure that ideas and work products – rather than a specific stakeholder – are addressed in the final ALM solution. After all, ALM is an organizational platform and should be treated as such.

10. Get the Signoff: It is important that the ALM project owner will present the final deliverables (e.g. Reports, Design Documents, Plans, etc.) to the primary participants, in order to get their formal signoff. This assures the stakeholders fully accept the decisions taken and agree to move forward.