How to Define Your Project

Desirea Herrera — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:45:13 GMT

A lot of times I get asked to take a look at an idea for a web site that a friend or colleague not involved with the IT industry has come upon. Most people have no idea what it takes to build a web site or a piece of software. Many times the idea is not very well thought out. A lot of people get caught up in their ideas and don’t consider the exactly how much work it might take to actually build the web site or software. That’s not their fault because they generally don’t know what it takes.

So what does it take to define your idea?

The first step in actually defining your idea would be up to figure out who is going to use your site or software. Software architects actually define these as users. When you talk to a web developer or web designer, they’ll describe an actual person or persona. A persona describes a person based on their experience, their job and their age. This gives the developer a sense of the skill set of the user.

Once you understand who would use the software, you need to understand how they will use the software or web site. By thinking of all the different types of activities the individual user might perform on the web site or software, you can start to understand the scope of your project. Developers might take this information and build up what we call Use Case Scenarios. Use Case Scenarios help us get an overview of the project.

Another thing to take a look at is the data involved. You need to know exactly what pieces of information will be input into the system and output from the system. That information needs to be broken down into a small a piece of data as possible. Someone’s address would be broken down into first name, last name, street address, city, state, and the zip code. It’s very important to identify every piece of data.

Once you understand who will use your web site or software and the data that’s input into and output from the web site or software, you need to think about specific rules. How are the users allowed to put data into your web site or software? What are they allowed to do with the data on the screen? These are your business rules. You may have a few of them or you may have all lot of them.

Something else that will help you define the scope of your project are interfaces. If it’s a web site, what pages will you need? If you know of a web site that is similar, to a look at the pages included on that web site. If it’s a piece of software, look at similar software. Write down a list to pages or key interfaces that you know you will need. Look back at the activities the users will perform. Those activities will help you define what pages you need.

By going through this process, you’ll get a better idea of the scope of your project. Once you know the scope of your project, you’ll understand the estimates supplied by the vendors. A low estimate may mean that the developer doesn’t really understand your project. Lowball figures can also mean poorly built software. Poorly built software Can and does cost you money. When you hire a developer to fix or redevelop the web site or software, they won’t be willing to give you a discount. Giving you a discount means the developer paid for the cost of building it the first time.

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How to Define Your Project