Manage Your Project Using V-Model Methodology

Understand the Technical Specifications

Once the functional specifications are signed off, you can move on to step 3 in the V-model process. You’ll be working on the technical specifications document. 

The technical specifications document describes all the tools and methods the developers will need to code the application correctly. For example, these will include the programming language selected for writing the code and the type of server that will be used to store the data.

This resource will give the developers all the details they need to understand “how” to build the application.

As project manager, your role is essentially to organize the writing process. This means that the technical specifications will be written by colleagues working within their areas of expertise. Your role will be to support them by providing a document plan, deadlines, and workshops where they can work on the document.

There are five main topics that regularly appear in technical specifications for software development projects.

1. First of all, there’s infrastructure. This section is where you’ll define the required hardware and storage methods for the application.

2. Next, you’ll detail the chosen technology. This section will describe the programming languages and packages selected for coding the application.

3. Thirdly, you’ll have the database schema. This involves indicating “how” the application data will be structured and linked together.

4. Then, there’s the software architecture. Here, you’ll be explaining how the different parts of the application will fit together and how they’ll communicate with each other to accomplish the required tasks.

5. And finally, you have the constraints. This section will detail the security, compatibility, and performance standards required from the application.

Writing technical specifications requires highly specialized skills for each topic covered within the document. To help you identify these skills, I suggest splitting them into two categories:

1. Development specialists: These are experts in technology, software architecture, and databases.

2. Cloud and infrastructure specialists: These people will handle aspects related to data hosting and methods for optimizing tools or resources used to hold applications, data, etc. 

Work Together on Technical Specifications

Writing technical specifications sometimes requires a team effort to help the contributors stay aligned with what they need to write. To make this easier, you can coordinate the activity by running group workshops with your teams.

Initially, you could prepare for the workshop by defining a clear framework. You could also plan some useful activities to complete before the workshop and activities to help keep people on track during the workshop.

1. Start by defining the workshop objective by focusing on one topic. This will allow you to concentrate on one subject in detail.
   For example, are we going to discuss the architecture, infrastructure, or technical constraints?

2. After defining your objective, you can invite the relevant technical staff to the workshop.
   For example, these might include development or cloud hosting experts.

3. Once you’ve defined your topic, nominate a workshop facilitator. This person will encourage participants to contribute to the group exercise.
   The project manager or a technical expert could act as facilitator.

4. To ensure that your technical specifications topic is properly covered in the workshop, study the business requirements and functional specifications. This will help you to guide the workshop in the right direction without straying off topic.

5. Finally, structure your workshop by defining key checkpoints. This will help you manage the time spent covering the desired points.

Once you have everything ready to run the workshop, you can apply some guiding principles during the session.

1. Encourage participants to contribute by asking questions and sharing ideas. Brainstorming will help to uncover interesting ideas.

2. Take notes of the ideas being shared. You could also assign someone the role of taking notes so you can focus on guiding the discussion. During workshops, I find it particularly helpful if another person is solely dedicated to taking notes. 

3. When you’re gathering information, you’ll need to be able to distinguish the key information that will enable better decision-making. For example, tables, mind maps, diagrams, and post-it notes can be good ways of capturing ideas.

4. Your resources and your ability to assess information will help you create a summary of the topic discussed during the workshop.
   For example, if the team seems to have a clear preference for a particular architecture, this needs to be taken into consideration by each section contributor when writing the technical specifications.

5. Once you’ve defined all the action items, feel free to communicate regular updates to track all of the decisions that were made.
   For example, has the architecture section been written in accordance with the decisions made during the workshop? Who is responsible for what? Has Catherine made any progress on the database schema?

If you’ve prepared well and ran the workshop effectively, you’ll have helped your teams work together on assembling the technical specifications.

Analyze the Technical Specifications

When you’re working on technical specifications without any technical training, it’s entirely normal to feel a little overwhelmed or to experience impostor syndrome.

But don’t worry if you feel this way! There are strategies to help you understand this type of document and feel more comfortable when discussing it with your team.

1. First of all, take time to familiarize yourself with the most commonly used terms.
   Take notes with tools such as mind maps and feel free to ask the technical team questions to clarify any concepts that aren’t clear.

2. Remember that your overall role is to coordinate the team and check that the technical specifications are clear and consistent, so don't feel that you have to understand everything.

3. Don’t be put off by complicated terminology. Your confidence will increase bit by bit.

Over to You!

Background

In case you've forgotten, for these activities you play the role of a project manager for AirGalaxy—a leading company in the aerospace industry. AirGalaxy is developing an application to test and monitor rockets in real time. To do this, they’ve built a team of professionals with a diverse range of skills.

Instructions

Your task is to place each topic within the correct section of the specifications and assign each contributor role to the corresponding section. Use the roles we’ve provided as a guide to complete your task.

Let’s Recap

• Technical specifications focus on the technical details of the software build, such as architecture, technology, coding standards, and performance constraints.

• Technical specifications should be written by people in technical roles.

• As a project manager without any technical training, take the time to understand the technical terms and ask questions to clarify the concepts.

• Study the diagrams and ask the team for clear explanations to help you better understand the structure of the software.

Now that you’ve clarified what major change your project will be delivering by creating business requirements and specification documents (both functional and technical), you can move on to the next step where you’ll set up your project management tools. 

But before we do this, I suggest you test your knowledge in the quiz that follows to finish off this part of the course.