Chapter 5 -- Project Vision

Chapter 5

About This Chapter

Without a well thought out, clearly communicated, business-driven vision, a project will not be successful. In this chapter, we describe the dynamics of the MSF Development Process Model's Envisioning Phase. We discuss what information to gather from the project stakeholders and how to creating a product vision. We discuss the participation of the MSF Development Team Model's various roles and what their responsibilities are within the Envisioning Phase. We also discuss how the envisioning process develops over a period of time. Finally, we present a detailed discussion of risk management, based on the MSF Risk Management Model. This risk management process starts at the beginning of the project and is incorporated into the entire development process.

The principles and guidelines we provide in this chapter are based on our own experience with the creation of application architectures and the implementation of enterprise applications, together with the following sources:

• The MSF Principles of Application Development course #1516
• Creating a Vision for Your Product, a white paper written by Laurie Litwack, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Small Business Solutions (BackOffice)

Upon completion, you will be able to:

• Explain the roles that individual team members play during the Envisioning Phase of the development process.
• Describe the Envisioning Phase of the MSF Development Process Model.
• Understand the concept of risk, and why continual risk management is important.
• Describe the process of risk assessment.
• Understand the differences between risk mitigation and implementing risk contingency plans.
• Describe the deliverables required to achieve the Vision Approved Milestone.
• State the contents and purpose of the Vision Document.
• Discuss the best methods of communicating vision.