Project Control Templates

Some modern software developers prefer to use various templates of project management processes. That helps them save a lot of time for other activities instead of creating their own project management schemes. In this article we will tell you about project control templates. But before doing that, it is necessary to give the definitions of project management and project control in software development, because of the fact that in software engineering these two notions have meanings that differ significantly from their general definitions.

Project management is a complex process aimed at delivering high quality software products in time. It is required to define the structure of software development projects. Currently, there are several project management methodologies in software development. Their selection depends on the software development method you use. For example, Waterfall projects are sequential. They do not produce intermediate products. It means that each of them has only one project management cycle. In Agile projects things are different. Their iterative structure requires several project management cycles for each project. However, regardless of the methodology you use, project management cycle always has three stages.

The first of them is the planning stage. Every software development project needs to have a good and realistic plan. It is necessary to define the tasks of the team during the period of project realization and the terms of product delivery. A good plan can make the project a success. That is because of the fact that it allows the developers to forecast all possible issues of their project and solve them just in time.

After the plan is formulated, the next stage of the project management process begins. It is called project monitoring or project tracking. Software development projects are monitored during all period of their realization. The main goal of this process is to detect all problems with plan implementation. They must be removed to avoid defects in the final product or situations when the team does not meet the terms of its project.

The next stage of project management process is called project control. It is one of the most important processes in project management. At this stage the developers eliminate all problems with plan implementation and project realization. After that they test the final or intermediate software product to make sure that the above mentioned problems did not lead to defects in it.

As we can see, project control in software development is only a part of project management process. That is why developers usually use general project management templates to handle it. However, there are also some particular templates for project control. Many websites even publish project control template reviews.

The type of project control templates you need to use depends on the methodology of your project. In some software development methodologies tests are conducted only at last stages of project realization. In others the intermediate products are tested after every iterative cycle. That is why different software development methodologies require different project control templates.

However, regardless of the methodology you use, the structure of project control process is always the same.

At the first stage of it the problems detected in the process of monitoring are eliminated. It means that the developers should remove the factors that impact their projects negatively.

After that they have to test the final product. As we have already mentioned, it is required to make sure that the problems with plan implementation didn’t lead to defects in it.