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- A software development plan
is simply a timeline of your project.
It shows when each phase of your software project
is scheduled to begin and end,
as well as the steps required
to complete each phase of work.
A software project plan gives your development team
a big-picture understanding of what it will take
to get the job done on time and budget,
including estimated time to complete work or sprints,
important milestones, dependencies,
deadlines, and deliverables,
as well as resources needed to accomplish each phase.
Most software developers use an agile framework
to get work done, and we get it.
Agile makes it easy to ship a product
and keep iterating on it,
but it's still important to have a plan.
There are timeframes around your work,
even when you're iterating, and that means your project
needs a clearly defined start and end date.
And someone on your team
should always have an eye on the bigger picture
to make sure you're making progress on your goals.
Using a Gantt chart to outline your plan
makes sure important milestones,
like approval or launch dates,
don't get lost in the rush,
and enables you to account for dependencies
between tasks or work phases.
It also gives you clear visibility
into how work stacks up across all your projects,
so you can take active steps
to keep your team from being overloaded.
Don't worry, formalizing your plan
doesn't mean everything's set in stone.
Plans are meant to be flexible.
So feel free to adapt your plan
to fit your team's process, whatever that may be.
For example, why not build agile sprints
into your Gantt chart?
This hybrid approach helps you foster
collaboration and transparency,
account for stakeholders in the process,
and create a more formalized feedback loop,
and build approval and iteration cycles
into your project plan.
Now that you know
why a software development plan is important,
let's talk about how to build one.
Here are some common phases most software projects include.
Consider these key steps
when developing your own project plan.
Before diving right in to a complex software project,
take time to understand the full scope of work
and detailed requirements
that will lead to a solid finished product.
Talk to stakeholders, team members,
and even potential users to get their take
on how the finished product should function
to meet everyone's needs.
Once you have a clear grasp on the scope and requirements,
use a Gantt chart to map out your project timeline
and resource assignments.
Regardless of your team's workflow,
you'll need to account for people's time
and include important checkpoints
for approvals in the project schedule.
While some teams can jump into simultaneous design
and development sprints,
the design team sometimes needs
to visually bring the idea to life before coding can begin.
Don't forget to build time into your plan
for collecting feedback and getting final approval
on the design work from stakeholders
to ensure a smooth and timely handoff to developers.
Does any groundwork need to be laid
before development begins?
Be sure it's included in your plan.
For example, you may need to schedule in time
to set up staging, production, or QA environments,
depending on what's important
to your team's testing process.
A good software development plan encompasses
every step of a sprint, including planning the sprint work,
running the sprint period, QA and testing,
fixing bugs, stakeholder review, and deployment.
There's no limit to the number of sprint cycles
your plan can include, so rinse and repeat the process
for as many iterations as you need.
Just be sure you're also planning time for retrospectives
and backlog grooming between sprint cycles.
Don't forget to keep track of your backlog, too.
Add a backlog section to your plan,
so you can add task for functionality changes
or new user stories as the project progresses.
Every software project is different,
and the tasks you include in each phase of your plan
will vary based on the work you're doing.
A template provides a great starting point
and can be easily customized
to fit your process and project needs.
Flexibility is everything
when it comes to software projects.
With TeamGantt, you can view your plan
in a variety of formats,
so it's easy for anyone in your team to visualize tasks.
Let's take a look at some examples
of how you can use TeamGantt's different views
to manage your software development plan.
Visualize work phases, sprints included,
in a simple timeline format.
Here's a quick glance at a few helpful features,
you'll find in the Gantt chart view.
The flexible drag and drop interface
makes it easy to move things around
on the schedule as needed if and when things change.
Drag entire groups of tasks to quickly reschedule
a sprint cycle, easy as that.
Tasks may need to be completed
in a particular order for your project plan.
For example, you most likely won't deploy anything
before ensuring that you've done
at least one round of testing.
Make sure work gets done
in the right order with dependencies.
Call out key dates, deadlines, approvals,
or deliverables in a project by using milestones,
and hit your launch date right on schedule.
Need to add more sprint cycles to your plan?
Simply duplicate task groups to save time on task setup,
then drag and drop to reschedule it in your timeline.
Make sure everyone's aware
of how their work fits into the bigger plan
by assigning teams and resources to tasks.
Looking for a quick rundown of the project work?
This view is easy to digest and shows you
what each phase of the plan includes
with expected delivery days.
Use list view to check in at your next standup meeting.
Use calendar view to get an intuitive look
at when your work will fall on the monthly calendar.
It's a great tool for touching base with stakeholders.
So you can plan reviews around dates that work for them.
Ready to get started on your next software project?
We've created a free software development plan template
for you and TeamGantt so you can jump right in.
Customizing the template is quick and easy,
thanks to TeamGantt's drag and drop simplicity.
And since everything's online,
your whole team can collaborate on activities in real time.
So sign up for a free TeamGantt account today
and save time on project setup
with this free software development plan template.
And that's it for this video on software development plans.
I hope you found it helpful.
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Thanks for watching.
I'll see you next time.
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