Project Objectives and Approach PDF

Project Objectives and Approach 1 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za  ✓ One of the keys to a good project is to start the team out with clear project objectives and a well-understood approach. PROJECT ✓ A project objecti...

Project Objectives and Approach 1 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za  ✓ One of the keys to a good project is to start the team out with clear project objectives and a well-understood approach. PROJECT ✓ A project objective is a statement of a measurable goal for the project. OBJECTIVES ✓ Project Objectives often spring from the client company’s overall business strategy, so the project objectives should be in line with the strategic initiatives within the company. 2 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za ▪ When the project kickoffs, ideally, you should have the following information: 3 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za SOLID Project Objectives When you start a new project, project objectives can come from the project’s sponsor, as well as project- related requests coming from business stakeholders and from customers, but they all may be a bit Fuzzy. The goal is to clarify these into solid statements/objectives that you can use as a yardstick for the project’s success: 4 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za Solid Objectives ▪ A solid objective is: Easy to Distinct. Measurable. understand. They avoid insider They avoid vague They make concrete terminology. statements; instead, use statements that you can wording that seems like it set an independent will be useful when you’re measurement against to prioritizing requirements. determine your success. 5 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za EXAMPLE: Fuzzy Objective Statement “Our objective is to become the market leader in industry x.” ✓ An objective for the entire company ✓ Is too broad for a specific project ✓ Multiple initiatives at the company need to come together to make this happen; ✓ Any one site or application may help with this but will be very unlikely to be able to handle the entire burden. 6 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za EXAMPLE: Fuzzy-ish Objective Statement “Our objective is to generate excitement among our customer base.” ✓ Better ✓ A site or application could have an impact on this. ✓ But it’s still too vague. 7 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za EXAMPLE: Solid-ish Objective Statement “Our objective is to increase the amount of traffic on our Web site.” ✓ Easy to measure, although: ✓ it’s too focused on an intermediate step. ✓ Suppose you do generate more traffic, it may not help if people don’t perform the actions you want once they get there. 8 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za  EXAMPLE: Solid Objective Statement Fuzzy objectives can give you a sense of a client’s desires and larger goals. From these you can craft more solid project objectives, such as: Each of these can be measured and affected by your project. 9 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za  ▪ S.W.O.T Analysis: Analyse the company’s current Strengths and Weaknesses as they pertain to the project, and identify Opportunities and Threats. How can a UX ▪ Compare Competitors: Designer What is the company’s main competition? help? Who are the competitors for the site being developed? Are there sites that aren’t direct competitors but that represent interesting models to consider? You can learn a lot from reviewing other e-commerce sites to see whether and how they sell what you’re selling. 10 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za Understand the Project Approach Knowing the overall approach, or methodology, of a project is an important part of understanding when and how you’ll be involved and how you should be involving others. Most approaches involve the same steps: a) Plan the overall strategy, approach, and team structure. b) Define the project requirements. c) Design interaction and visual concepts and evolve them into detailed specifications. d) Develop, test, and refine the solution. e) Deploy the solution via messaging, training, and a planned launch. f) Extend the project by making recommendations for improvements. 11 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za Waterfall Approach A future task can only be started when a previous task has been completed. The tasks are referred to as Phases 12 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za  Agile Approaches ✓ Less rigid than Waterfall ✓ Tasks can be completed in parallel ✓ Focus is on rapid collaboration ✓ True agile focusses on sprints to identify and fix issues that have been identified in short stand up sessions. ✓ Less documentation needed between sprints 13 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za Calls for small teams whose members are located next to each other physically, with little focus on defining formal roles between team members. Working this way allows a very high degree of collaboration. 14 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za Modified Approaches Best of both worlds There is overlap in phases like in Waterfall Methodology Potential changes would surface early in each phase. Smaller iterations within the Design phase is value brought by UX designer 15 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za THANK YOU /belgiumcampusSA #Belgium Campus [email protected] +27 10 593 53 68 /belgiumcampus 16 www.belgiumcampus.ac.za