Planning Your Internationalization Project
Steve Billings, Account Executive, Bowne Global Solutions, USA
Intended Audience: Software Engineers, Managers, Project Managers
Session Level: Beginner, Intermediate
This presentation is for software development managers and project managers who need to scope or plan an internationalization project. It helps them answer the following questions about the engineering work required to prepare their software for one or more new international markets:
- How much will it cost?
- How long will it take?
- What work will be required?
- What resources will be required?
- How do we develop a comprehensive and accurate project plan?
The talk maps out a process for determining project scope (cost and time), and developing a project plan. The process consists of four phases:
1. Requirements Specification: Defining how the software must function for the
new markets.
2. Current State Analysis: Determining the current state of the software with
respect to the relevant technical characteristics.
3. Architecture and Design: Planning the architecture and design changes on which the new functionality will be built.
4. Project Planning: Generating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), schedule,
and resource plan.
This process offers the following benefits to project planners:
- It provides a roadmap to follow during the planning phase.
- It enhances the accuracy of the resulting cost/time estimates.
- It produces modular estimates that can be reconfigured for scoping a variety of scenarios.
- It increases the likelihood of a successful project (on time, on budget, and on target).