Thought of the day: Questions to ask your clients and developers?

There are times when it is a great idea to ask your clients and your developers a few questions about the project you are about to join.

Naturally, you will not be able to ask all the people the questions but you never know.

However, the answers should give you a rough idea of the maturity of the project.

The following table is an overview of the detail & questions you may need from each of the stakeholders. You may determine that additional/different people are needed to fulfil this and some people may have multiple roles but it should be a starting point.

Who (Client)	Information sought
Project Sponsor	Provide an overview of the Objectives and benefits expected What are the Business’ general expectations of the project? How are they being assessed? What are the Business’ technical expectations of the project? How are they being assessed? What are the Business’ security expectations of the project? How are they being assessed? Is there a feature project roadmap and is it shared with the Team?
Product Owner	Provide an overview of the prioritised delivery roadmap What are the Business’ general expectations of the project? What are the Business’ technical expectations of the project? What are the Business’ security expectations of the project? Is there a feature project roadmap and is it shared with the Team? What security requirements has the business placed on the system? What non-functional and performance requirements has the business placed on the system? What is the current and future growth of the system expected to be? Are requirements prioritised using a MoSCoW scheme? As PO are you involved in the Sprint planning phases of the project? Are you involved in the development of the project feature backlog? Are you involved in the development of the sprint planning process? Are technical blockers reported to you? Is there sufficient project information being provided by the team to assist with the creation of further requirements? Provide a walkthrough of the feature backlog and priority Provide insight into the current issue/risks/constraints to the project
Project Manager	Provide an overview of the current SDLC, measures and controls What are the processes & tools for requirements control? Does the project have a Release timeline? What is the process the team is following to control their development? If it is agile can you describe the process? Who is involved in the development of the project feature backlog and whats the process? Who is involved in the development of the sprint planning process and whats the process? As PM how would you describe your role in this SDLC? Does the project have a measurable sprint velocity? As PM are you involved in the Sprint planning phases of the project? How are testing outcomes & blockers/impediments reported and tracked? Are technical blockers reported to you?
Data/Business Analyst Business SME	What is the Business’ general expectations of the project? Provide an overview of the top priority Use Cases for the solution What are the processes the system needs to perform? What is the current quantity of data the system must process? What are the data sources, transformations and outputs the system must perform? (schemas, definitions, data flows etc) What security requirements has the business placed on the system? What performance requirements has the business placed on the system? What is the current and future growth of the system expected to be? How are the requirements communicated to the team? How is system functionality measured against the requirements?
Technical Architect	What is the overall System architecture context? What are the main functional components of the system? What are the processes & tools for requirements control? Are you involved in the development of the project feature backlog? Are you involved in the development of the sprint planning process? What security requirements were placed on the system? What performance requirements were placed on the system? What is the current and future growth of the system expected to be? What architecture requirements were placed on the system? What other non-functional requirements were placed on the system? Is there a Disasters recovery plan for the system? If so how is it implemented architecturally? Is it possible to get access to all existing design notes for the system? How are design choices and patterns communicated with the team for development? Is there a deployment strategy or process for the system? (Infrastructure as code?) Is there a testing/assurance strategy or process for the system? When there are issues with the development are you informed and consulted? When there are issues reported by assurance are you informed and consulted? Prior to the system going operational are you consulted by the Assurance, Operations or development team on how systems should be configured, or any potential issues? When in operation do you have visibility of operational monitoring systems? Once the system is deployed how do you know that it has been deployed according to your specification? Does the system have a ‘Technical Debt log’ or a list of known issues? Provide an overview of the solution architecture Provide details of constraints, dependencies and issues encountered and impacting delivery
Vendor Tech Lead	How are requirements communicated to the team? What is the process the team is following to control their development? If it is agile can you describe the process? Are you involved in the development of the sprint planning process? Is the team aware of the release schedule for the system? Is the team recording development information in some way? If so using which tool? What security requirements were placed on the system? What performance requirements were placed on the system? What architecture requirements were placed on the system? What is the process of reporting progress in development back to project management? What are the development toolsets in use across the team? When source code is developed what coding standards are being followed? When source code is being developed which source code management (SCM) tool is in use? Who has Source code access? When a build of the system is performed what are the build artefacts and how are they stored? What is your SCM versioning & branching & merging strategy? When defects are found, how are they reported, tracked and reported? What are the capabilities of development staff & their relative strengths? Is the team following a BDD/TDD development approach? What level of code review is performed during development? What is the release process for new functionality? Do you produce release notes for each new release? How many environments are used for development? What is the process for procuring cloud development stacks? What are the data sets used during development? How is the development environment secured? Is there a build process for the system? If so what is it? Is the system deployable using automation tools? If so what are they? What level of testing (manual & automated) exists for the system to prove functional & non-functional requirements? When the system is in UAT what information/documentation is requested by Assurance to determine the available functionality? When the system is in LIVE what information/documentation is requested by Operations regarding its operation and deployment? Provide an overview of the solution and the code Provide details of constraints, dependencies and issues encountered and impacting delivery
Security & Compliance	Provide an overview of the prioritised Security & Compliance requirements for the solution When the system requirements are being determined was security consulted? When the system is being developed what involvement does Security have? When the system deployment is being planned is Security consulted? Is Security informed of code related security issues? Is security informed of how the system is tested for compliance with security requirements? When operational how is the security of the system managed? If there is a security issue with the system how are you informed? What is your process for reporting a security breach? Provide an overview of constraints & dependencies for delivery
Assurance Lead	Provide an overview of the testing strategy and framework Provide an overview of the test coverage on the solution and the measures in place What involvement does assurance have in the code-Review process? What level of functional testing does assurance perform on the system? What level of non-functional testing does assurance perform on the system? What proportion of the testing is automated vs manual? Does the system have automated test reports and how are they reported to assurance What is the test plan for penetration testing? How does assurance get involved with the defect management process? Does assurance have any input on the architecture of the system? Once deployed what involvement does Assurance have with the system?
Operations	Provide an overview of the path to live/transition to live process. When the system is being designed what visibility do you have or need of its functional requirements? When the system is being designed what visibility do you have or need of any security requirements? When infrastructure is needed by the Development, Test and support team what is the process they must follow? How are you informed by development of the build artefacts needed for deployment? How do you enable or control the provisioning of cloud resources by the development team? What information do you need regarding the security of the proposed system? What information do you need about the testing process? How are deployment details of the Deployment & Configuration process communicated to you? What is the process for post-deployment system testing? How is performance and systems failure reported? What are the Monitoring processes and how & what is reported? If the system has a bug how is it reported and who does the repair work? What are the system’s supported hours? What is the systems supported availability? What is the DR plan for the system? When in operation does development have access to the system to perform fault analysis?

 Have fun!