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Four Reasons Google Adwords is Not Meant for Beginners

Software Outsourcing — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:12:16 +0000

Google Adwords is an incredibly powerful marketing tool with an instant global reach that can take your business from nowhere to an overnight success. Why wouldn’t a new marketer take advantage of such a powerful tool? I can answer that question with another question. Why wouldn’t you let someone with a new driver’s license behind the wheel of a race car? Because, unless they are extremely lucky, they are going to crash and burn. Google Adwords is the Formula One of marketing online and it is not for beginners.

As advertising goes, the reasons to avoid Google Adwords early on in your education is overwhelming.

1) First, it can be very expensive and most new marketers will exhaust their ad budget before they can successfully bring in revenue. This is mainly because Google Adwords can be deceptively difficult to master. The basic formula is to identify keywords, write an ad that uses the keywords and have a landing page that completely delivers on what your ad promises.

2) Next, Google rewards advertisers who solve the problem their searchers are trying to solve. If you fail to do this you can expect high cost per click and low traffic.

3) Further, Google purposefully keeps the exact formula for success under wraps. If you are not getting the results you are seeking, the support you receive from Google will be general at best. Expect Google to suggest “improve your landing page” or “tips for writing ads.” On top of that, Google periodically change their rules requiring you to change your campaign or face the prospect of high cost per click or low traffic.

4) Finally, the instant global reach of your Google Adwords campaign is accompanied by global competition with a wide variety of skill levels and budgets.

Keep your chin up though. There are many options that exist for the new marketer.

Initially most new marketers have more time than money and that can be a good thing (more on that later). There are many low-tech approaches that have worked for decades and still do. These alternatives allow you to learn how to market affordably which will allow for some trial and error without spending your whole ad budget.

Using some of the methods below will allow you to use several forms of marketing which is a more balanced and stable long-term approach. Here is the big bonus: your competitors are still online spending themselves out of business with Adwords!

Here are just a few options when thinking about an offline marketing campaign. They may not be sexy, but they are time-tested, and still very effective marketing tools.

1) Newspaper Advertising - requires only a computer and 800 number. Information about newspapers from around the country is easily researched online and ads can cost as little as $10 per week.

2) Flyers - this is a big one for those who have time but little money. Getting flyers or business cards made is cheap and easy using a site like vistaprint.com. Spend a couple of hours a day papering parking lots. The key with this plan is to put out a lot of flyers (hundreds daily).

3) Bandit Signs - Simple three line signs that reside at intersections and other high traffic areas which direct prospects to an 800 number with a message. Signs cost between $2-$5 dollars each and work wherever your prospects pass by or congregate.

4) Warm Market - You have an immediate advantage approaching people you know because a level of trust exists between you. Many marketers can get off to a quick start by starting here.

5) Article campaigns - this is absolutely free to do. Establish yourself online as a respected and knowledgeable marketer in your niche. You may still be learning the ropes about marketing, but you definitely know more than most people about your business.

6) Blogging - Similar to article marketing in that you share information about your area of expertise. Once people see you as a helpful resource they will begin to seek you out. The key here is to provide new content on a consistent basis. You can start today with a free site from WordPress or Blogger.

If you have the budget, make Google Adwords a part of your overall marketing plan AFTER you have established other forms of marketing. Whenever you are new at something you need to be allowed to make mistakes, learn from them and apply what you have learned in the future. Hard won knowledge is the best way to learn. By starting with basic (and still viable) forms of advertising you can develop into a well-rounded, knowledgeable and, ultimately, more successful marketer in the long term, which is everybody’s goal.

Source: seo-news.com

Trish Thackston– Brookview Partners teaches people how to become successful home-based entrepreneurs. Want to know the five principles we use and teach that have generated millions in income? Click below for our free report http://www.thehomebusinessroadmap.com

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Ten Ways to Use PHP on your Website

Software Outsourcing — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:55:49 +0000

PHP is a programming language that allows your website to go beyond a basic HTML document, and create an interactive experience. Open source means that the source code is available to someone with proper access to the site, so that they can easily make changes. When the Internet was first getting started, most of the pages on websites were basic HTML documents. Meaning that when you visited a page (about.html, for example), you downloaded all of the content of the page into your browser.

How Do I Know if I have a PHP Site?

If you are visiting a site, and you see that the page name ends with .html, this means that the page is most likely a plain old HTML page. If the page name ends in .php, then you the site is a php based site. Other dynamic programming languages include .jsp (Java Server Pages) or .asp (.NET or Active Server Pages). Occasionally you’ll see sites that end in .html that have dynamic code embedded in them, but this requires some tricks to accomplish on the server.

We have several sites that use static HTML pages and have great results. There are some pages that have dynamic content, but most of the pages are built in straight HTML. It’s great for search engine optimization, as some of those pages have been active for years. However, as the number of pages grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to update menu or navigation items, because it means you have to open each page, one at a time, and modify the contents.

Advantages of using PHP

PHP works a little differently. Instead of downloading the entire page (with the navigation, content and everything in one file), php allows you to embed programming code that isn’t displayed to the end user. This programming code allows you to tell the page, “Insert the top navigation here.” Or, “put the content for the page over there.”

PHP allows you to personalize a page, for example, or automatically detect that a user is coming into the site from a mobile device and display a different version of the site that is optimized for their Blackberry or iPhone. PHP keeps most of the code for the site “behind the scenes” so that the page that is displayed to the end user loads quickly and doesn’t require the browser to do processing work — the work is handled instead by the server.

PHP Is Ideal For Working With Databases

One of the biggest advantages of a programming language like PHP is that it allows you to easily interact with a database. If you’re unfamiliar with databases, think of a database as a souped-up form of an Excel spreadsheet. You have columns (i.e. page name, content, title) and rows. Rows typically would hold information that is organized by column headings.

PHP makes it easy to read information from a database, and then display information onto a web page. So, if you’ve ever used a site where you type in your zip code to find a store location near you, the system likely is taking your zip code, performing a database query (i.e. find all stores within 10 miles of the 80303 zip code) and display the results so that you can find your way. In order to do this, we have a geolocation database that allows us to tell the approximate distance between two zip codes.

You could do the same thing by building out a series of web pages that has each location. And while this is fine for three or four locations, as the number of locations increases, PHP allows you to automate the process.

Source: sitepronews.com

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Ecommerce Shopping Cart, Online Shopping Cart Solution

Software Outsourcing — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:24:13 +0000

When the business starts conducting transactions online, customer should be able to browse around-similar to how they browse for his/her product in a grocery store. He/ she might able to place, remove, modify (change there brand) there product items from there grocery basket according to their changing state of mind. In online shopping customer is allowed to have same level of comfort & flexibility with an ecommerce shopping cart.

The grocery shopping basket, an ecommerce shopping cart is capable of far more functionality. This article will provide you some quick tips that you should consider while purchasing a shopping cart for your online business.

What does Online Shopping Cart Solution have that make it stand out from any other software around?

It has absolute power to automate your online internet business. It can manage your orders and products without any hassle, Make sure that your mailing list receive they daily dose of email, process payments and many more. How about that?! Shopping cart software probably quenches your thirst for online business automation. This kind of software is very in demand today, for it does work easily that cannot be done by a person or even a group.

Nowadays, going online is a great chance of increasing your sales and spreading your customer base. Statistics show that online sales are steadily increasing and lots of merchant ecommerce are going online. To keep up with the competition, one must use internet marketing strategy like using available tools around. And a web shopping cart is a perfect tool for the success of one’s online business.

You may see these shopping carts on most of the sites you visit. They play a vital role in improving people’s business. It has become one of the essential part of a shopping cart website. These ecommerce stores are creating markets of never-ending choice where consumers can get exactly what they want. Since there have been many advances to the internet and the internet marketing services, it made it very easy to make money online.

It is a clumsy process to manage the details of the purchase-history of customers if you business is not automated. Manually, it is impossible to update details of customers as well as commodities for a particular ecommerce hosting site. Moreover, if a system is not capable of handling large amounts of data, chances are that it might go haywire. That is why ecommerce shopping cart solution seems to be the most useful ecommerce software available today.

An Ecommerce Cart Software essentially includes a database that has all product information, customer database, etc., a storefront that displays all information to the viewer, and an administration area that allows the store administrator to manage the store. The administration area of the ecommerce cart is what you would be managing. It is this part of the software where the ecommerce merchant account can make all changes and updating like, adding and editing products, categories, discounts, payment settings, affiliate network etc. Since most of the information is stored in the data base, the cart creates pages in ‘real time’. These pages do not exist till the customer requests for one, that is the page is created only when the customer visits the store and looks for a product.

Easy Shopping carts are very essential for online business opportunity. Without a shopping cart, you are hindering your buyer from purchasing everything that they may purchase. Selecting the correct cart to match your business is decisive. There are so many different carts available and all of them do different things in different ways. Choosing the right shopping cart web hosting can make the difference between succeeding and failing in online business. So you need to choose the best ecommerce hosting and hosting merchant account for your shopping cart. You need to find that perfect system that fits your website, allowing you to handle payment processing and giving your clients a smooth shopping environment

A software cart makes online shopping much easier and enjoyable, not only for the buyers and merchant but also for those who want to do internet marketing online advertising of products that they do not own. They are called affiliates. Shopping carts offer affiliate opportunity for people. This only proves that everybody including people, who do not have their products can benefit on the beauty of shopping cart software.

SEO Friendly Shopping Cart

SEO friendly shopping carts have very powerful in-built SEO features that make it easy for you to optimize your website for search engines. They help you promote your website by generating search engine friendly web pages. Well-designed front ends make it easy for crawlers to pick up key words. Aptly titled pages are a favorite with search engines and SEO friendly shopping carts title each of your pages appropriately so they show up when customers search for your products. SEO friendly shopping carts also generate sufficient keyword density to help your pages rank high in internet searches. Search engine friendly product catalog, automatic generation of a well defined sitemap and search engine friendly URLs are other useful features. Of course, SEO friendly shopping carts also add the necessary meta, title and description tags to your web pages.

SEO friendly shopping carts take much of the hard work out of online marketing. With a robust solution, business owners have to do little more than stocking up on their inventory and getting ready for sales.

by articlesbase.com

How to build proficient team of .NET developers?

Software Outsourcing — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:10:19 +0000

The exclusive advantages of team management have helped numerous software firms in achieving great heights in their business. You can always build a proficient development team in your company as well. This team would undertake all the important development processes that are necessary for enhancing the progress of your firm. You can hire the .net developers and the very skilled asp.net coders who can take the responsibility of all the important software development processes.

Both the .net developers as well as the asp.net coders are on a high demand these days and would remain so for many more years to come. You can always achieve a better management in your company by building a team of such developers and coders who can then undertake the work in a very well organized manner providing you with the desired results.

You can always start building a team of developers and coders by hiring the extremely skilled professionals who have had a great history of working on projects related to the very reputed software firms. While hiring the developers and coders you can always interview them over the high speed VOIP connections and also through video conferencing in order to monitor their skills. This can also help you in analyzing the ability of these developers and coders to work as a team. You can also equip your team of coders and developers with excellent communication softwares like instant yahoo messenger and Skype which can help the team members in communicating all the essential information that is useful for the progress of the firm.

You can build a team of developers and coders by appointing senior and junior developers and coders. Doing this can always help the junior coders and developers in learning from their seniors. This would also be beneficial to you in a manner that with due course of time, your junior coders and developers would become proficient enough in their work and would further help in lasting the progress of your company. You can distribute different tasks to different coders and developers and check their performance on a regular basis.

I hope these simple ways of building a proficient team of .net developers and asp.net coders would definitely be of use to you. It is a known fact that the software firms working on the concept of team management have always been able to achieve great heights in the business world.

At individual level a offshore development center get popularity if there is perfect management at all levels, appropriate utilization of all kind of resources available, time management, professionalism & technical expertise, advance infrastructure and last but most important effective communication channel between outsourcing company and offshore service provider.

Effective offshore centers get popularity as they use to provide Quality and Timely IT services. There clear communication makes them strong for winning the believe of the outsourcing clients, further their customized methodology of performing work suitable to the business nature of the outsourcing company. Flexibility element in the offshore service provider helps them in molding themselves according to situations and making them to coordinate perfectly with changing business trends.

Technology expertise of the center plays a great role in providing the successful projects to their offshore clients. Their regular research and development programs leads them to get more expertise for using the basic technology in new form, they discover new methods to integrate the old concepts with fresh ideas and ready to adopt the advanced technologies for rendering quality services to outsourcing companies or clients.

Enhancing the process of retaining the outsourcing companies by the mode of powerful customer care services by an offshore center is one of the convincing reason for their success in the international business. Good customer care services before the project, during the project, and after the project makes the strong position and goodwill of an offshore center that helps to remain for long time in service sector. Effective customer care services use to develop a sense of reliability in the mind frames of the outsourcing firms for the offshore center.

Source: articlesbase.com

Mobile application development, Mobile Phone Testing Services

Software Outsourcing — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:54:43 +0000

Since the onset of the 21st century, Vietnam has witnessed a surge in the arena of mobile phones as convenient modes of communication. Mobile phone manufacturing giants such as Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and others have made billions from the fantastic surge in the demand for mobile phones among the Vietnamese people. The growth of mobiles as a dire necessity has not only increased multi-fold in the urban areas of the country, but has also become as handy and as popular as in the rural areas. With the costs of mobiles coming down to only about $10-$20 for a single handset, the easy accessibility and the buying capability of the people have both converged to consequent into the business expansion of the mobile phone industry that has rocketed through the roof!

However, apart from these mobile retail giants, there are smaller mobile phone companies that provide cell phones at even lower prices, albeit without the warranty or guarantee most of the times. The temptation of a bulging market for these mobile phones as well as the high-end profits for a foray into the mobile phone business have been enough reasons for numerous such small-scale companies or individuals to open shops. From providing low-end mobile phones with only the basic services to high-end expensive phones that double up as media gadgets, with high-profile cameras, music-players and other similar complex applications. Most of the vendors operating here get their mobile phones modeled and developed from external vendors, who usually do not have the brand repute or publicity that renowned vendors enjoy. There are two main reasons for this – low labor costs and convergence of mass skill sets. But since the development of the phones is delegated to low-profile external vendors, there is no way that guarantees they would not be dumped by the consumers in the national or international arena – the vendors’ target group.

Here is where mobile testing services come into play. Professional mobile testing agencies implement their technical expertise as well as other resources to identify a particular brand’s or handset’s individual fallacies and problems regarding various aspects of the phone. The initial aspect that an experienced testing agency would look for in a mobile is its network and connectivity testing and then benchmark the phone accordingly. For basic phones from such vendors, this is enough to check whether they will last the public scrutiny for a successful sales stint. Next is the testing of the graphic interfaces and multimedia applications – such as in the high-end mobile phones’ camera, music player, image quality, interface type etc. Value added services and extra features are tested next, although these may not be given as much importance by the vendors as the others. Offshore testing has particularly gained prominence today.

Mobile Application Testing- Best way to grow up business for mobile application developers

Testing is one of the most essential segments of the application development process. Mobile application testing is the process to pledge the quality of mobile phones. As mobile handsets squeeze new technologies and more potentialities and as customer console with using mobile products persists to develop, the mobile applications marketplace should continue to be a beneficial one. To help realize this potential, mobile application developers, handset manufacturers and service providers must understand the need to necessitate testing and quality assurance values across the industry. This movement toward standardized mobile application testing requirements has already begun to unfold. By doing so, there is much to gain for all. Mobile applications have never been popular in earlier days, but now its popularity is booming day by day. Mobile application developers are facing a crowd of challenges due to the increasing difficulty of testing across different handsets, carriers, languages and locations.

The mobile device testing as well as mobile phone testing is in huge demand now. In today’s world, you have a number of choices to make what device should your application use, what operating system, what networks will be relied on? Moreover, the list only keeps growing. Why not make things simpler?

Mobile Application Development

Mobile technology solutions, standards based technology leverages J2EE, J2ME, Personal Java, CORBA, and .Net in order to provide mobile applications at cost effective pricing & on required time with finest quality Till date we have delivered mobile application for our customers in Vietnam, United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and from other European Countries. You can ask us for skills like: .Net, Java, J2ee,J2me, C++,C,VB,Vc. Interworld Commnet’s mobile application development capabilities includes:

1.Add a mobile device interface to existing applications.

2.Augment mobile application infrastructure with a location-based service component so that our customers can bank on smarter applications with rich and easy user experience

3.Mobile-enable existing enterprise applications.

4.Test mobile applications, especially from a usability perspective.

5.Implement SyncML-based synchronization of data between mobile devices and enterprise applications.

6.Mobile-enable company alerting and notification services to ensure that a mobile workforce has the right information when and where they need it.

Source: articlesbase.com

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Onshore Development is replaced by Agile Offshore Development

Software Outsourcing — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 03:25:38 +0000

In fact it is seen globally that Onshore Development is replaced by Offshore Development by large extent. Companies are attracted more by the advantages they get through overseas development and services. It also has been the talk of the town topic everywhere. Big companies are also now developing their business strategies accordingly and scheduling tight budgets that lead them for the Offshore Outsourcing. All business plans are also developed by keeping in minds the benefits and flexibilities of overseas services.

In such overseas service companies globally are now becoming more mature. Now the relationships between two overseas countries are not just professionals but they are much more than that. Companies now have started to build more long term relationships with their overseas partners or service providers. Companies now are focusing more on setting up the outsourcing framework and also work accordingly regarding how the transition would be managed during the whole deal. Roles to the official executives are also allocated accordingly. The list of the company’s goal is increasing in overseas dealing rather than they had for onshore services. Companies are also putting more and all possible efforts to maintain and enhance their business overseas rather than working on the home soil. Companies are also finding rising in the ROI.

You can do a lot more than just outsource software development processes; you can choose an offshore company to complete your software development projects. What are the advantages of offshore outsourcing software development? First of all, there is cost-effectiveness. Second of all, there’s premium quality of services, for the competition is acerb in the software development market and such specialists have handled hundreds or maybe even thousands of projects of different complexity and scope. And last, but certainly not least, agile scrums in offshore software development make it an excellent choice for those who want to outsource their projects to an offshore company.

The agile development techniques have led to the success of many software development firms, and agile offshore development is no exception. The management and control of software development processes using incremental and iterative practices has become possible with the advent of scrum, a lightweight and agile process. Unlike the waterfall method, which is based on a sequential and serial approach, the agile development technique relies on the premise of collaborative approach.

Competitive pricing and competent personnel are a must, but they may not be enough when it comes to software development. With the constant need to stay ahead of the competition, offshore software development firms have made it their job to stay in touch with everything that is most effective and efficient in the IT environment. And since many important companies worldwide have generated best business practices with agile scrums, there should be no wonder that the services provided by offshore companies include agile offshore development.

What are the benefits of agile scrums in offshore software development? For starters, all possible risks in software development are minimized with the implementation of an agile technique. Agile offshore development allows for useful software to be delivered rapidly and continuously, to the customers’ satisfaction. Time-effectiveness is yet another benefit of agile scrums in offshore software development, as working software can be delivered in weeks rather than months. Furthermore, agile offshore development allows for close collaboration between developers and companies, adaptation to changing and developing circumstances, last-minute changes in requirements, and face-to-face conversation, all with the main purpose of improving quality of services and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Source: articlesbase.com

How Writing Articles Can Generate Traffic and Improve Sales

Software Outsourcing — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:13:38 +0000

Writing articles is a very simple and free way to generate traffic to your website and improve sales of your product. However, to be effective it has to be done properly, and there are some aspects of article marketing of which many people are unaware.

Or perhaps you are aware of them, but don’t know how to put them into practice. It is not the purpose of this article to tell you how to write: there are rules that should be followed for best results, but these have been more than adequately covered by the myriad other articles that have written on the subject.

In fact, that would be one of the lessons: the use of the noun ‘myriad’. A word for a large number, it is Greek in origin, and correctly should be neither preceded by ‘a’ or followed by ‘of’, so ‘a myriad of articles’ is not grammatical, while ‘myriad articles’ is. However, like many of these rules of grammar, common usage is gradually superseding the correct form, and I’m not going to lose sleep over it.

No, here we are going to discuss how articles can be used as opposed to how to write them. We shall assume that already have a great article, with a good keyword-rich title and your body keywords used as they should be. So this is not so much about writing articles, but how to use them to generate traffic and improve sales of your products.

There are two main ways in which articles can be used: by publication as content on your own website and by submission to article directories. Let’s discuss each of these in turn.

Using Articles as Website Content

Articles can be used as web content for any type of website. People generally prefer to come across a web page containing a useful article that tells or teaches them something about the topic of the page than simply a page of graphics or links. In fact a proper silo site demands them.

Silo Sites: When writing articles for a silo site it is first important to draw up your site structure and make a list of the topics you will have to write about. There are various types of silo site, but that which offers excellent search engine results involves a home page linked to each of a number of silo header pages. Each of these introduce the theme of the silo, and link both to the home page and to the first silo page for each silo.

It is not the purpose here to discuss silo sites in detail, only that they can help to generate traffic and improve sales by the simplicity of their structure. Search engines can easily find every page on the site, and every page contains good content. That is assuming that they are well written and provide useful information.

Articles should just be ‘page fillers’ but should teach something about the topic, or provide information that is genuinely useful to readers or visitors to your website. Each page of a silo site is intended to provide that type of information, and can also be backed up with products or services that relate to the theme of the article and the silo page.

Sales Sites: Writing articles for sales sites does not infer writing sales pages, but writing in such a way as to promote a product or provide a problem and its solution, the product or service being promoted then being presented as a means of applying or achieving that solution. While I see a silo site as providing information first and the product second, with a sales site that is reversed, and certainly changes the way the articles is written and used.

Affiliate products can be sold both ways: they can be presented as a means of backing up the information provided in an info-silo site, offered as solutions to problems or form the main object of a web page and the articles offered in a promotional or review format.

Distribution to Article Directories

When you distribute an article to an article directory you benefit in a number ways, the main two being through the Google PageRank and search engine results listing gained from the backlinks proved to your selected web page from the link in the resource section of the article, and from the search engine listing of the article itself.

Articles are also read by users of the article directories, and they are also copied by webmasters as content for their own Adsense site: here, the resource section must be left intact, again offering you links back to your site. However, it is from their listings on search engines that you will get most tangible benefit, because each article is published on its own page in the directory website, and can be listed on Google in the same way as any other web page. Hence the need for good SEO on in your article.

If you don’t understand how to optimize an article it is certainly worth hiring an article ghostwriter or learning how to do it yourself, because it can make a massive difference to your sales, and generate traffic such as you have never previously experienced.

It is not necessary to submit your article to hundreds of individual directories and ezines. Submission to the top 10 or 15 directories is all that is needed. Because many of these syndicate their articles to other directories, and a number of ezines also pick them. If you want to increase your submissions above that, there submission services available online and also software that can be used to help you do it yourself.

So, writing articles can generate traffic and improve sales very dramatically if you know, not only how to write them properly with good search engine optimization, but also how to use them to your greatest advantage.

Source: sitepronews.com

Steps to a Hassle Free and Effective Software Development Project

Software Outsourcing — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:58:17 +0000

Has your company developed entirely new software or added to software already in use throughout the organization and found the process cumbersome, frustrating, and sometimes not living up to expectations or meeting organizational goals? If so, the solution to a smooth and effective development program may be as easy as staffing a well-qualified project manager and adopting a proven development process.

For any software development or other project initiative your company may be considering, it is critical to have in place and practice a set of effective and proven guidelines to ensure project success and delivery of the expected results: taking into consideration the role and responsibilities of a well-qualified project manager, knowledge of important business and financial aspects, and a step-by-step process that all contribute to the solid foundation and implementation of an effective project plan.

Developing a Practical Approach: The Role of the Project Manager

When undertaking a software development project, the first element to consider is the establishment of a comprehensive yet practical approach to the initiative that ultimately will lead to a successful end result.

The in-house project manager has a key role in ensuring each phase of the project is carried out as planned. The project manager is responsible for considering the potential risks involved with the project and how to avoid and resolve them, establishing and maintaining momentum throughout the project, ensuring individual project team member tasks are assigned appropriately and carried out according to specifications, and successfully addressing and resolving any conflicts that may arise during the length of the development project.

A well-qualified project manager is able to address what may seem to be an overwhelmingly complex process by developing an organized approach where the process is broken down into manageable individual tasks and understanding how to keep those involved in the project dedicated to the ultimate goal of meeting and even exceeding the expected end result.

If the project manager dedicates the necessary time, effort, and resources to the preparation of an efficient, comprehensive, and practical approach, then the project team may progress with ease and confidence as they deliver on their individual tasks, having a solid foundation and strategic framework at the outset. Far too often, however, failures with such projects are the result of not only a poorly executed plan, but one that ultimately lacked the fundamental elements of a well-though-out approach rooted in adequate preparation and commitment from the project manager and project team.

Designing a strategic plan means taking into consideration all aspects that can contribute to success or potential failure.

Embarking on the Initiative: Key Steps to Consider

With a comprehensive approach and a competent project manager in place to guide the new software development initiative, there is another important element your organization may find helpful as you embark on the project: establishing specific steps that can be followed to project completion that are based on proven industry experience in such a project environment.

Following are a set of practical guidelines to approach a software development project, established by two university professors and business consultants with specialized expertise in the computing, engineering, and general business environments.

Dr. Gordon Scott Gehrs is an adjunct instructor at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and a business consultant for the Jules F. Knapp Entrepreneurship Center at IIT. Dr. Dorota Huizinga is associate dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science and a professor in the Computer Science Department at California State University, Fullerton, as well as a frequent business seminar speaker, a business consultant, and co-author of Automated Defect Prevention: Best Practices in Software Management.

Read on for nine key steps to consider as you embark on a software development project.

Step #1: Conduct Feasibility Analysis
According to Dr. Gehrs, a critical first step is to interview stakeholders in order to uncover whether a specific need exists, identify this exact need, and determine whether the proposed project can feasibly deliver the expected software development. “Many times, this is the point at which an ROI study will be carried out in order to determine project costs and benefits,” says Dr. Gehrs.

Step #2: Analyze and Determine Requirements
When it comes to the next step of determining requirements, Dr. Gehrs believes a proper analysis should consist of interviews with end users and others who will be associated with the new software system. In addition, a thorough review and a keen understanding of user documents, business rules, and processes are keys to determining appropriate and necessary features and functionality. This is a valuable and significant step in the development process and the point at which such deliverables as those documents outlining the scope of the project and those detailing the software product requirement will be produced.

Dr. Huizinga notes the importance of having the minimum technology infrastructure in place before beginning a software project, which include:

• Desktops for development with an advanced integrated development environment suite.
• A server with a configuration management system for document tracking and version control.
• A staging server for integration testing and a production server for deployment of the final product.
• A requirement/task/defect tracking tool.
• An automated build system.
• A regression testing tool.
• An automated reporting system.

“Investing in the proper infrastructure is essential and will pay back quickly,” asserts Dr. Huizinga. There are three key elements the proper infrastructure provides:

• Product and project visibility
• Automation of repetitive and mundane tasks
• Facilitation of collaboration

Step #3: Consider Industry Best Practices
When defining a software development process, consider proven industry best practices. Dr. Huizinga recommends a good, customized Agile process with emphasis on pictorial documentation both for requirements and technical documentation. It is important to follow a standard template and all activities should be traceable through a requirements/task/defect tool and shared document repository.

Step #4: Design
During the design phase, the software architect, programmer, and/or developer may put together a detailed design document outlining exactly how the software will meet the specified requirements. Dr. Gehrs recommends the use of mock-ups to accompany the design document as a way of illustrating user-interface elements.

In some cases, customization is required in order to meet specific, individual project needs. For example, Dr. Huizinga notes that this might include the use of specialized COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) hardware and software components. The wide spectrum of products from databases to game engines is dictated by the market shift to customization of existing commercial applications to fit project needs rather than in-house development of such systems. According to Dr. Huizinga, COTS can offer higher quality because they are developed by vendors who specialize in systems that provide the required functionality and are well-tested by many users.

Step #5: Measuring and Tracking Progress
Without the proper technology infrastructure in place, it is difficult to collect and measure key project data. “Consequently, the software projects cannot be managed effectively,” says Dr. Huizinga. Project indicators can help to ensure the prompt identification of potential or existing problems, therefore allowing them to be recognized and remedied in a timely manner. When observed over an extended period, notes Dr. Huizinga, these indicators can be used to determine product quality and deployment readiness.

Step #6: Development
At the development phase, the design document is translated into a real piece of software. When prior careful planning has been executed, the software will match the requirements of the business driver that initiated the need for the project. Dr. Gehrs points out that development cycles may produce several versions of the software:

• Alpha: preliminary feature/functionality only
• Beta: used for internal testing or usability testing
• Release Candidates: usually a very stable build that may need minor tweaks
• Production Build or Gold Master: ready for release.

Project managers need feedback on the user’s navigational experience, task-completion times, ease of use, and other information related to the user interface and user-centric elements.

Step #7: Addressing Automation
Another key step is to ensure the automation of repetitive tasks:

• Code builds;
• Static code analysis scans;
• Regression tests;
• Collection of project- and product-related measures.

Dr. Huizinga believes that taking such measures reduces the error-prone human influence when the software is implemented. It also facilitates the use of best practices and collection of project-related data. “All repetitive and mundane tasks should be automated whenever possible in any portion of the software life cycle,” she adds.

Step #8: Testing
As the project continues on through each phase and on to testing, a general progression of action is as follows: software features are laid out in some sort of list, scripts are written for each task the user might perform, and those features are tested to ensure they function properly. Dr. Gehrs points out that testing also may vary quite widely depending on the individual testing procedures adopted by the organization. Testing can consist of several sub-stages as well, such as quality assurance and staging.

Once the software is in general use, any bugs found at this point are addressed based on a criticality scale: urgent fixes are scheduled to be carried out as soon as possible. In addition, feature enhancements/changes may be slated for future upgrade versions.

Step #9: Gradual Implementation Practices
“Incremental implementation of the above practices is critical to success. The approach of gradually introducing change group by group and practice by practice is essential to achieving the desired organizational culture change, as change is unsettling, and there will always be some degree of resistance,” points out Dr. Huizinga. Because of the complex nature of software projects and the technology involved, new software development warrants this systematic approach.

Understanding the role of the project leader and importance of having well-thought-out development processes in place may be a company’s only real competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace. It is the ultimate secret weapon to winning business and successfully delivering new easy-to-use software.

With workable and disciplined software project guidelines and well-qualified project managers, your organization can’t lose

Source: articlesbase.com

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