Planning Your Project

If you do not know where you are going, any road will do.
    - Chinese proverb
If you do not know where you are, a map will not help.
    - Watts Humphrey

Planning a software project is just as important as planning any other complicated endeavor. In his book A Discipline for Software Engineering Watts Humphrey devotes three chapters to planning activities. This help topic will not rehash the ideas put forth there, but will simply serve as a reminder that planning is essential!

The Process Dashboard provides extensive help for your planning activities. You can create projects and enter tasks in a work breakdown structure, so that time, size, and defect data can be tracked. The PROBE tool and PROBE Wizard help automate the PROxy Based Estimation method. Finally, the Task and Schedule Tool allows you to create a schedule and track your progress against it using earned value.