Intelitec Software Engineering

Developing reliable and usable software that is delivered on time and within budget is a difficult endeavour. Products that are late, over budget, or that don't work as expected also cause problems for the organisation's bottom line. As software projects continue to increase in size and importance, these problems become magnified. Choosing the right software engineering team is crucial.  An experienced design and development team overcomes these problems through a focused and sustained effort at building a process infrastructure of effective software engineering and management practices.  Intelitec Pacific software engineering staff have refined our process over many years and to cater for the specific demands of many diverse industry sectors and technologies.  Intelitec exploits proven, effective software engineering practices when refining its own software processes.

Our software process contains a coherent, integrated set of well-defined software engineering and management processes including; readiness criteria, inputs, standards and procedures for performing the work, verification mechanisms (such as peer reviews), outputs, and completion criteria. Because the software process is well defined, the client has good insight into technical progress on all projects.

What are the key elements of Intelitec Pacific's software engineering process?

Requirements Management
Intelitec Requirements Management establishes a common understanding between the customer and the software project of the customer's requirements that will be addressed by the software project. This agreement with the customer is the basis for planning and managing the software project. An effective change control process is engaged to manage requirements evolution (see sidebar).

Software Project Planning
Software Project Planning involves developing estimates for the work to be performed, establishing the necessary commitments, and defining the plan to perform the work. The software planning begins with a statement of the work to be performed and other constraints and goals that define and bound the software project (those established by the practices of the Requirements Management key process area).

The software planning process includes steps to estimate the size of the software work products and the resources needed, produce a schedule, identify and assess software risks, and negotiate commitments. Iterating through these steps may be necessary to establish the plan for the software project (i.e., the software development plan). This plan provides the basis for performing and managing the software project's activities and addresses the commitments to the software project's customer according to the resources, constraints, and capabilities of the software project.

Software Project Tracking
The purpose of Software Project Tracking is to provide adequate visibility into actual progress so that management can take effective actions when the software project's performance deviates significantly from the software plans. Software Project Tracking involves tracking and reviewing the software accomplishments and results against documented estimates, commitments, and plans, and adjusting these plans based on the actual accomplishments and results.

A documented plan for the software project (i.e., the software development plan, as described in the Software Project Planning key process area) is used as the basis for tracking the software activities, communicating status, and revising plans. Software activities are monitored by the management. Progress is primarily determined by comparing the actual software size, effort, cost, and schedule to the plan when selected software work products are completed and at selected milestones. When it is determined that the software project's plans are not being met, corrective actions are taken. These actions may include revising the software development plan to reflect the actual accomplishments and re-planning the remaining work or taking actions to improve the performance.

Software Quality Assurance (SQA)
Intelitec Software Quality Assurance provides Intelitec and client-side management with appropriate visibility into the process being used by the software project and of the products being built.

Software Quality Assurance involves reviewing and auditing the software products and activities to verify that they comply with the applicable procedures and standards and providing the software project and other appropriate managers with the results of these reviews and audits.

The software quality assurance group works with the software project during its early stages to establish plans, standards, and procedures that will add value to the software project and satisfy the constraints of the project and the organization's policies. By participating in establishing the plans, standards, and procedures, the software quality assurance group helps ensure they fit the project's needs and verifies that they will be usable for performing reviews and audits throughout the software life cycle.

The software quality assurance group reviews project activities and audits software work products throughout the life cycle and provides management with visibility as to whether the software project is adhering to its established plans, standards, and procedures. Compliance issues are first addressed within the software project and resolved there if possible. For issues not resolvable within the software project, the software quality assurance group escalates the issue to an appropriate level of management for resolution.

Software Quality Assurance is an integral part of our software engineering and management processes.

Software Configuration Management (SCM)
The purpose of Software Configuration Management is to establish and maintain the integrity of the products of the software project throughout the project's software life cycle. Software Configuration Management involves identifying the configuration of the software (i.e., selected software work products and their descriptions) at given points in time, systematically controlling changes to the configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration throughout the software life cycle.

The work products placed under software configuration management include the software products that are delivered to the customer (e.g., the software requirements document and the code) and the items that are identified with or required to create these software products (e.g., the compiler). A software baseline library is established containing the software baselines as they are developed. Changes to baselines and the release of software products built from the software baseline library are systematically controlled via the change control and configuration auditing functions of software configuration management.

Technology Change Management
Technology Change Management identifies beneficial new technologies (i.e., tools, methods, and processes) and transfer them into the organization in an orderly manner, as is described in Process Change Management, below. The focus of Technology Change Management is on performing innovation efficiently in an ever-changing world.

Technology Change Management involves identifying, selecting, and evaluating new technologies, and incorporating effective technologies into the organization. The objective is to improve software quality, increase productivity, and decrease the cycle time for product development.

By maintaining an awareness of software-related technology innovations and systematically evaluating and experimenting with them, the we select appropriate technologies to improve the quality of software and the productivity software engineering activities. Pilot efforts are performed to assess new and unproven technologies before they are incorporated into normal practice. With appropriate sponsorship of principal architects, the selected technologies are incorporated into our standard software process and current projects, as appropriate.

Process Change Management
A key feature of our software process is that of software process improvement. Throughout our cycle we engage a number of activities that improve the our overall software process capability.

Process Change Management continually improves the software processes used in by our team with the intent of improving software quality, increasing productivity, and decreasing the cycle time for product development. Process Change Management takes the incremental improvements of defect prevention and the innovative improvements of technology change management and makes them available to the entire team.

Peer Review
The professional development of the team and the  effectiveness and value of our intellectual assets also benefit from our common forward feedback philosophy. 

Peer Review is an important activity in our software process.  The primary purpose is to remove defects from software work products early and efficiently. An important corollary effect is to develop a better understanding of the software work products and of defects that might be prevented.  Moreover, as the majority of our development work is object oriented, each project actively builds upon object libraries, the performance and stability of these libraries often depends on knowledge transfer activities such as peer review.

Peer Reviews involve a methodical examination of software work products by the producers' peers to identify defects and areas where changes are needed. The specific products that will undergo a peer review are identified in the project's defined software process and scheduled as part of the software project planning activities.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Our professional development program develops the skills and knowledge of individuals so they can perform their roles effectively and efficiently. Training is an organizational responsibility, but the software projects identify their needed skills and provide the necessary training when the project's needs are unique.