Solve i tlabs_offshore_project-management

Offshore Outsourcing Contract Development Activities Version: 1.0

NearShore and Offshore Project Management September 20, 2010

SolveITLabs, 2010 Page 1

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Offshore Outsourcing

Project Management and Development Activities

Offshore Project Management

Document Authors: Rafael Soultanov

Reviewed by: Rafael Soultanov

Version: 1.00

Date: September 20, 2010




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1. Resolution Methodology

a. Project Plan

A Project Manager, from SolveITLabs, will be your assistant, collaborator and liaison

during this process. The steps we take to establish this project are:

Step 1. Create Project Team

The Project Manager will be assigned to the project. This project manager will work with

offshore project manager to select the team best suited for this project with the skill set

and background.

.

Step 2. Create System design document

The next step is to develop a System Design Document. We will develop this document

together with CLIENT. This document will determine the feasibility of the technology

options that will be used to meet the requirements that will provide the desired features

for CLIENT. In addition during the creation of this document future requirements will

be discussed to ensure that the new version can support these requirements.

The purpose of the Design Document is to systematically specify requirements for the

project and the features to be developed. Both functional and non-functional

specifications are captured in this document. It serves as the guidebook for design and

development.

Work on this document will start as soon as an initial work order for the project is

signed. The project manager assigned to this project will work with CLIENT technical

staff to discuss and resolve any technology or design issues needed to implement the

development.

Step 3. Development of software

The development team will start development of the programs as specified in the System

design document. We anticipate the Software progress will be tracked via the

SolveITLabs intranet and with weekly status reviews with the project manager, lead

developer and CLIENT. Based on completion of the System design document in

September the development-coding phase will be completed by the acceptable date.

.

Step 4. NearShore testing




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A QA engineer will be assigned to the project and will be performing on going testing

and bug reporting as software development proceeds. He will also work with CLIENT to

develop the acceptance test procedures.

Step 5. Initial delivery

If the above start dates and system design approval dates are met then the delivery of the

full software package will be as both partied agree on.

Step 6. On site testing and acceptance

After the software is delivered we will have onsite testing and feedback to the

development team. The project manager will coordinate this testing, feedback, bug fixing

and final acceptance.

b. Communication

CLIENT will receive from SolveITLabs, on a regular basis, deliverables such as; code

releases, documentation, schemas, database designs and status report for review. To

facilitate, organize and present these deliverables, CLIENT will receive an account and

login privileges to SolveITLabs’s project management Intranet site. Posted there are all

documents, status reports and detailed descriptions of the software development process

for you to see and respond to. For your consideration we have established a temporary

login and password. You are encouraged to login now so you may access and look at

some of the documents we have posted there. CLIENT is responsible to assign their own

project manger to work with SolveITLabs on a daily basis to provide tasks, review the

project implementations and provide feedback to SolveITLabs.

Phone

o You can talk to our sales, PM, or billing representatives by calling at

anytime during your business day to our US or Moscow-based offices. In

80% cases we are available to talk immediately. In the rest 20% cases we

may need 3-6 business hours advance notice.

Email

Intranet

o For your consideration we have established a temporary login and

password. You are encouraged to login now so you may access and look at

some of the documents we have posted there. CLIENT is responsible to

assign their own project manger to work with SolveITLabs on a daily

basis to provide tasks, review the project implementations and provide

feedback to SolveITLabs.

c. SolveITLabs Development Process:

http://Solovatsoft.com/SolovatSoftSoftwareDevelopmentProcess.pdf

http://solovatsoft.com/SolovatSoftSoftwareDevelopmentProcess.pdf




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d. SolveITLabs Project Lifecycle Methodology:

http://Solovatsoft.com/Development%20Standard%20Deliverables.pdf

e. Project Management Structure

The project team for the Development phases will be organized as follows:

f. SolveITLabs’s Roles and Responsibilities

Project Manager

o Manages the overall Project, the development environment, and provides

process related support for the teams on the project.

o Leads and coordinates technical activities and artifacts the project.

o Establishes the overall structure for each architectural view: the

decomposition of the view, the grouping of elements, and the interfaces

between these major groupings.

Team Architect

o Develop System design document, provide lead and guidance to team.

Programmers

o Develop appropriate modules assigned by the Lead developer.

Quality Assurance Tester (the second developer will perform this task)

o Executes testing, including test set-up and execution,

o Evaluates test execution and recovery from errors.

o Assesses the results of test and logging of identified defects.

g. Discovery & Knowledge Transfer Detail

During the first weeks SolveITLabs will review the documentation, learn the existing

system and its business logic of the tasks and will ask CLIENT team if there are any

unclear questions. SolveITLabs will regularly contact CLIENT to clarify the system

design requirements and user workflows.

CLIENT is responsible for maintaining its production systems. Also a QA/Staging

environment (servers, databases) needs to be configured where SolveITLabs will be

uploading code updates for CLIENT’s review and feedback. Maintenance of QA/Staging

servers is the responsibility of CLIENT. In the event CLIENT needs SolveITLabs to

allocate resources or create QA/Staging servers it needs to be discussed separately for

each tasks since software-licensing fees could be involved.

Throughout the project SolveITLabs requires CLIENT to provide timely clarifications,

review of the work results and feedback.

US Project

Manager

Mobile

Developers

QA Engineer and

Product Manager

ManaManager

Offshore

Manager/Lead

http://solovatsoft.com/Development%20Standard%20Deliverables.pdf




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SolveITLabs will contact CLIENT person responsible for work with status reports,

questions and code drops for review.

CLIENT will track the project’s status using SolveITLabs’s Intranet based Project

Tracking Management System. The project plans and tasks are updated according to the

tracking results.

h. Documentation

SolveITLabs utilizes IT Project Management methodology for managing the

documenting process and documentation content throughout the project development life

cycle. Software documentation can be classified as follows:

Technological documentation defines the software development process and

contains detailed technical descriptions. It is intended for use by our software

design, development, maintenance and testing specialists in order for them to

master, enhance and correct the programs and data throughout the entire software

life cycle.

The document integration is carried out according to the Project Management

methodology

The life cycle of the CLIENT project is similar to the industry standards:

o Analysis and specification development

o Preliminary design.

o In-depth design.

o Component coding and debugging.

o Integration and complex debugging.

o System testing and documenting.

o Release to production and product maintenance.

To effectively manage the software development and documenting process, a

software development plan is created. The plan outline is as follows:

o General structure of the documentation package.

o Terms, definitions, and the content of each document.

o Document structure, quality and notation requirements.

o Document integration and storage requirements.

o Document preparation, checking, editing, control, discussion, approval

and distribution schedules.

To implement the documentation plans, we create documents that regulate:

o Document creation process.

o Obligations and duties of specialists responsible for each particular

document.

o Resources required for document creation.

o Document quality requirements and control methods.

The development of QA documentation can be seen here:

http://Solovatsoft.com/quality.html

http://solovatsoft.com/quality.html




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i. Work-Load Split

SolveITLabs proposes to develop all products from its development facilities. During

creation of the System Design document and the user acceptance phase the

SolveITLabs Project Manager and developers will be available for review and issues

clarifications.

j. Project Monitoring and Control

Project status reports will be issued weekly and will include milestone-tracking details to

ensure that the project stays on track. Changes in the schedule will be escalated to the

project managers, who will then decide whether to alter scope in order to preserve target

completion dates.

k. Requirements and Change Management Plan

All feedback from CLIENT will be logged; the software problems or bugs will be

registered and acknowledged by issuing a bug description document. SolveITLabs agrees

to solve all bugs during the warranty period within the costs given for this project. All

change requests that are out of scope need to be discussed with the Project Manager.

l. Quality Control Plan

All deliverables are required to go through the appropriate review process. The review is

required to ensure that each deliverable is of acceptable quality, using guidelines

described in the XP review guidelines and checklists. In addition, defects will be

recorded and tracked.

m. Reporting Plan

Weekly project status reports will be issued. Phase and iteration summary reports will

also be issued at the appropriate time on the Intranet based project management site.

n. Measurement Plan

Effort and time will be used to track progress of the project. The project manager will use

Planned vs. Actual reports to measure progress.

o. Development Approach

SolveITLabs will use Rapid Application Development Approach (RAD) or XP which

need to be discussed before the beginning of the project. It’s the most suitable approach

for this type of joint development in a distributed environment. SolveITLabs’s

development team will manage and comply with key processing areas of CMM Level 3.

p. Coding Standards

Unless coding standards provided by CLIENT, SolveITLabs will be using its own

development standards.

q. Defect/Bug Tracking & Repair Process We have several bug tracking databases installed and used by different teams in the dev center.

Any one of them may be used:




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Mantis

Mercury TestDirector

Bugzilla – open-source

Internal Bug Tracking and project management software

r. Final systems testing (regression) and preparation

User Guide update according to the CLIENT feedback

Regression testing and bug fixing.

Installation and Administration Guides

Preparation of the source files, packages, etc. to be transferred to CLIENT

The document below describes our testing standards in detail:

http://Solovatsoft.com/DatabaseTestPlanSample.pdf

s. Warranty/Support Plan

We can provide CLIENT with a customized support plan to meet your specific needs.

The software will be warranted for 3 months from release.

We make source code security a high priority and take every necessary precaution to

prevent any leaks outside of the team. Each employee signs and adheres to an individual

NDA agreement.

We take every step possible to prevent un-authorized internal and external access and

network based attacks to source repositories. We utilize Firewalls for the local network in

our company and corporate wide anti-virus software. We employ 4 system and network

administrators in our company.

Our contract specifies that all copyright, and Intellectual Property ownership, remain with our

clients. SolveITLabs is assigned no, and retains no, derivative works of our Client’s Intellectual

Properties.

t. Milestones

Based on the development milestones, code modifications will be remotely delivered and

installed on CLIENT’s server(s). If it’s required, the deliverables can be set up on the

server and an additional set of unit/system testing can be performed. The final milestone

release will have the necessary technical and user documentation based on CLIENT

requests. CLIENT would be responsible for providing the sets of documentation

SolveITLabs needs to develop each task.

2. Corporate Background: SolveITLabs

a. Company Overview

SolovatSoft, Inc is working under DBA (Doing Business As) name SolveITLabs. It is a

privately-held, California-based company that was incorporated in 2001 and

reincorporated in 2005. The company is well established, cash flow positive, and

http://solovatsoft.com/DatabaseTestPlanSample.pdf




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employs over 100 engineers and software developers. We have been providing

engineering and consulting services to small and big companies in the areas of wireless

engineering and 3G technology selection and deployment; Embedded development,

Technology strategy; and software development, integration, and support.

b. Project Team Organization

For each project we assign a US Project Manager (PM). The PM is responsible for the

project completion and the support activities. A dedicated team of developers is also

assigned to each project where one of the senior developers leads the team as a Team

Lead.

Most of our employees (~85%) have been working in SolveITLabs for more than

5 years. About 50% of them have been working in our company for 6+ years.

Our Project management is located in US and has working experience from a

number of US companies.

We use US and Russian based Project Managers to effectively coordinate and

execute projects.

c. US Contact Information

Solovatsoft, Inc.

1065 E. Hillsdale Blvd, Suite 401

Foster City, CA 94404

Tel: (800) 782-1746 x 102

Fax: (800) 782-1746

g. IT Services Span

SolveITLabs can help your company create new opportunities for improvement by

reducing the costs of managing applications by over half. We offer a wide range of

services that can help transform your business and technology operations to world-class

excellence.

IT research and consulting.

Offshore software development, including re-engineering/development of

business applications, as well as of system-level software and drivers.

Enterprise development and integration.

h. Verticals Expertise

Finance

Technology

Insurance

Printing Industry

Medical

Travel and Entertainment




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i. Technology Domain Expertise

Internet Applications

Database Development

System Development

Device Drivers

Workflow Management

Wireless Development

j. Technical Skill Set

. NET Framework

J2EE/J2ME development

Database development

CRM/ERP development and integration

Win32 development

Linux/Unix programming

Wireless development

k. Certifications

Our development center is ISO – 9001:2000 certified.

o CMMI Level assessment planned for the second quarter 2011

Many of our developers have passed different certifications

o Cisco

o Sun Microsystems

o Microsoft

m. Major Customers