Project Management

Chowan County, NC, North Carolina, Online Project Management

Project Technical Specification

A quality technical specification can vastly improve the productivity of your IT project development resources. Not to be confused with the functional specification, which specifies what the software does in layman's terms, the technical specifications details how the system works, in clear, unambiguous technical language suitable for the most detailed developer.

Technical Architecture Costs

Function requirements drive the technical architecture. The right solution for one set of requirements may be wrong for another. Take care to select a consultant who puts your interests first, and is not beholden to any particular proprietary technology. Consider the cost savings from using packaged solutions or starting with an open-source framework.

Know when to expect a reasonable project cost estimate. Be wary of anyone claiming to do the work for a fixed price, before the total project cost could possibly be known. When asking your consultant to estimate the project costs, remember to do  the requirements analysis, functional specification, and technical specification first. Without taking these important preliminary steps, and project cost estimate you get will be just that - an estimate, regardless of whether it is presented to you as a fixed price or not.

Consider IT Staff Skill Set

You will often have choices of technical architecture: platforms, development languages, packages from different vendors, and application frameworks. When several different paths may get you safely to your destination, which path do you choose?

An experienced consultant can help bring valuable insight and perspective to your decisions. A key factor will be to consider the capabilities of your existing IT staff. A Linux platform running an open-source solution coded in PHP may be a good alternative for staff with the skills to maintain it, and not so good for staff experienced on the Windows platform.

Consider the Bigger Picture

Often, you will reap benefits over the long term from a design strategy using modules to apply to other future projects. Code re-use promotes better quality and lowers future maintenance costs. You may consider extending the analysis phase to cover analysis of systems other than the one in the current scope of work. Armed with knowledge of future systems, your technical architect can choose a design suitable for both the current and future requirements.

Design for Maintainability

Good architecture often results in specifying and applying object-oriented design and other best practices during the solution development. Key issues to consider include: proper object selection, clear functional division of code modules, and consolidating functionally duplicate code sections into one reusable method.

Properly applied design saves you maintenance costs down the road. A higher level of design up front enables you to maintain the application with lower-skilled staff, as much of the future changes that can occur over time will have been anticipated and designed into the architecture.

Use Current Technology

While it may sound obvious, a new technical architecture should rest on a foundation of current technology. Use of existing licenses for older platforms may be less costly. However, unless the application is intended for temporary use only, why release it years closer to obsolescence that it need be? Platform vendors have limited support and fixed lifetimes for their products. Use of current technology allows you to benefit from a supported platform for a longer time into the future.

Unless beta software is widely expected to be released prior to the end of the application development cycle, avoid technology in beta. It may tempt some developers or consultants, who eager to add a new technology to their resume. However, you are well-advised to avoid tying your product's release date to a software vendor's plans, frequently subject to change.

Leverage Pre-Built Modules

Don't use your precious and expensive resources to re-invent the wheel. You may be amazed at the amount of pre-built code available to incorporate into your application. Using pre-built and pre-tested code shortens developer learning curves dramatically. Application frameworks often elegantly handle mundane infrastructure work, freeing you team to focus on the logic specific to your business.

When necessary, you may investigate purchasing third-party components. While capable of providing much functionality and better quality code at a fraction of the cost of developing it yourself, be aware of some caveats. You may not have access to the source code, necessary to fully understand, debug, and troubleshoot your system. The vendor could go out of business, leaving you without support. And the vendor's design choices may not be optimal for your needs, limiting your application.

Learn More

Contact Productive Technology today to learn more about our expert application architecture project management consulting services. Together, we will put together a system you will be proud of for many years to come.