The Russian Post implements a management system for software development

Federal State Unitary Enterprise NIIPS completes the project of creation and system implementation of management of development for Russian Post.

Background

Several InformSystem is developed for customer company now. Only in the last three years two full-function versions of the "Central Mass Storage about the Postal Addresses" system (TsHDPA) and several its intermediate releases were created.

However for management of development separate software tools were used, each of which was responsible only for separate process steps. Because of it the created documentation (technical specifications and projects) was incomplete. Sometimes, that some requirements of the customer were overlooked, and for correction of a situation it was necessary to remake a part of already complete works that delayed commissioning of the project. Testing of software products was often held without preliminary planning and study of scenarios. Reports about tested were transferred to developers in the form of simple text files with the unformalized description of the revealed defects.

In the last two years the quantity of tasks which are set by Russian Post for the general contractor constantly grows. To correspond to new conditions the management of Federal State Unitary Enterprise NIIPS initiated the project on improvement of development processes.

Solution

The pilot project is decided to be carried out within the project team which is engaged in TsHDPA. The choice is caused by importance of the project and need of strict observance of terms of its accomplishment. The new version of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server became a basis of the platform of automation. Besides, the Visual Studio Test Professional system from the structure of Microsoft Visual Studio is implemented.

During a pilot project it was necessary to improve processes of management of requirements and managements of testing. Specialists of the Russian division of Microsoft Consulting Services helped to develop regulations of processes and to customize the implemented systems.

Implementation of TFS — from development of regulations before start in operation — continued about two months. During this time specialists of Microsoft carried out for the staff of Federal State Unitary Enterprise NIIPS of class in setup and use of the solution. Now 20 people work with a system.

Results

Implementation of a new solution allowed to achieve the main thing — to systematize all development stages and to provide transparency of processes of management of requirements. Thanks to TFS it was succeeded to organize full interaction of all project participants — analysts, architects, programmers and testers. In uniform storage all documents on the project are collected, and according to each requirement it is possible to trace the works both executed, and planned.

"The controllability of projects considerably increased, now at any time we can estimate percent of implementation of each requirement. As it became much simpler to control labor costs of programmers and testers, the reliability of planning increased, also the quality of study of projects Improved. Before the requirement were approved with the customer only at the level of the general concept, and the part to us had to finish thinking independently. Because of it there were difficulties at a stage of delivery of projects. Now any requirement of the customer cannot be missed or incorrectly interpreted", - Romanus Klien, the associate director of Federal State Unitary Enterprise NIIPS noted.

"Benefits from implementation of new methodology by our main developer, Federal State Unitary Enterprise NIIPS, were felt also by us. The project on which the new technology of development is implemented became considerably more managed on terms, the number of iterations on refining of requirements to a system was reduced", - Sergey Poluyan, the project manager Russian Post told.