Structure Elements of Focused Build Projects

Project Phases

A project usually comprises the following phases:

• Discover & Prepare

  Modeling of the business processes, definition of requirements, and planning of projects and releases

• Explore

  Creation of work packages for requirements, scope definition, and breaking down work packages into work items

• Realize

  Developing and testing of the software changes

• Deploy

  Finalizing of the release and hand over to the customer

• Run

  Go-live of the new release and hyper-care during the introduction phase

Releases, Waves, and Sprints

A project has one or more releases.

A release is developed in several waves. A wave comprises a well-defined functional scope of work packages that is formally signed off by key users, such as business process experts. A wave starts with a scope definition and a functional specification. Each wave ends with a quality gate. After a wave, developers present the changes and new features to the requesters and key users.

The lowest level is the sprint. A sprint is a defined period of time during which the development teams have to provide deliverables for review. The backlog of a sprint is based on the prioritized work items.

Requirements, Work Packages, and Work Items

Requirements are defined during the prepare phase of a project and describe the scope of the project. Solution architects create work packages for the requirements.

Work packages are used for planning the technical implementation of a requirement. Work packages are assigned to waves. Development architects divide the work packages into work items.

Work items are implementation tasks of work packages. Work items are realized during sprints.