Quality Money Management : Process Engineering and Best Practices for Systematic Trading and Investment

183

Plan and Document Technology

Specifications

CHAPTER ◆ 20

Design

system

architecture

Build and

document the

system

Check

performance

and probationary

trade

Plan and

document

technology

specifications

Implement

1

2

3

FIGURE 20-1

After passing through Gate 2, the requirements of the trading/investment systems are

fixed, except for the look and feel of user interfaces and reports. The product team can no

longer add to or change the trading/investment strategy without returning to a prior phase

of the model. This is an important milestone in the development cycle. It is more impor-

tant to deliver a working system that meets specifications at this stage than to develop a

perfect system. One of the main reasons that software projects run over budget and behind

schedule is scope creep due to the programmers striving for perfection too early in the

life cycle of software product. At this point, scope can no longer creep. The development

team should build software iteratively to meet the specifications and requirements from

previous stages—no more, no less. Any major enhancements should be withheld until the

Kaizen stage, that is, after Stage 4, as part of the continuous improvement process.

The product team began development with a vision and scope document—the Money

Document—which they used to acquire resources for Stage 1. By Stage 3 the evolving

project description should clearly lay out the inputs, data processing, functionality, and

outputs, as well as special technology performance requirements and behaviors, called

quality attributes. Furthermore, prototypes should provide a full decomposition of the

software. Additionally, constraints with respect to resources, risks, and delivery dates

should also be well documented.