Most agile methodologies and processes do not actually include (pre-)sales activities or initial set up of a software development project. Each Smart project however starts with one or several
Propose iterations. This type of iterations is targeted at delivering a sound project proposal, similar to delivering a
project brief in Prince2.
Because the rest of a Smart project is highly standardized around delivering smart use cases, Smart projects can also be very standardized during the early
Propose and
Scope iterations, as they revolve around scoping the project around these smart use cases.
Read more- Smart iteration cycle. Each iteration in a Smart project follows the same pragmatic iteration cycle to deliver products.
===Goals===
The primary goal for the (last)
Propose iteration is to establish a project proposal, in closing collaboration with the customer. To achieve this goal a number of project activities can be added to the back log.
Whether these activities are actually executed depends on the type and the scale of the project. For instance, creating the smart use case model is required to do a full smart estimation. In smaller projects, this model can be easily made. However, in larger projects, to the estimate might well be based on a simple list of smart use cases, which saves time.
Read more- YAGNI. YAGNI is becoming one of the key principles in agile software development. What is YAGNI and how does it apply to Smart?
- Smart estimation. How does smart estimation work?
Go / no-go
Each
Propose iteration ends with a go / no-go decision made by the project owner. There are two options:
- Authorize Scope. The project owner only authorizes the next pre-project iteration to get a better picture of the project. This is either another Scope or a following Propose iteration. This next iteration also ends with a similar go / no-go decision.
- Authorize project. The project owner authorizes the rest of the project, up to last Finalize iteration.
Goals
- Stakeholders needs. Understand the stakeholders needs and goals for the project
- Acceptance criteria. Make the acceptance criteria explicit. Do not forget to include them in the project proposal.
- Estimate. Get a solid estimate, using smart use cases and smart estimation
- Proposal.Write a project proposal
===Work items=== - Identify stakeholders and goals. Identify the stakeholders, their needs and the resulting project goals.
- Make acceptance criteria explicit. Make acceptance criteria explicit so you can check along the way if the project is doing everything to make them true.
- Establish business processes. Find out which business processes or end user work processes the new software needs to support or automate.
- Model smart use cases. Map the business or work processes to smart use cases.
- Make estimate. Get a solid estimate of the total complexity of the project, by performing a smart estimate, using the smart use cases.
- Write business case. Before running of into a new project, it might be worthwhile to compare costs and benefits of the project. This will help the stakeholders decide to go for it.
- Write project proposal. Write the proposal for the remainder of the project.
===Techniques used=== - Business process hierarchy
- Use case diagrams
- Smart estimation
Under normal circumstances the main activities during the
Propose stage focus on transforming the customer's input to standardized smart use cases, and setting the stage for the project.