Even though considerable research has been devoted to determining what factors contribute to the failure of a significant number of software development projects and how to overcome these obstacles, relatively little has been written about changing your mindset to focus on success rather than assuming that the project will fail right from the start. As such, this article will explore the best practices to assure software project success from the outset as per JFrog guidelines.

Have Smart Goals and Specifications

A product roadmap that describes a strategic strategy and emphasizes your goals is an effective way to organize this information. Be as clear as possible about the parameters your team must achieve to assist you in achieving your ultimate objective. Create a value-driven statement before commencing the software development life cycle to help establish a precedent for what your project is, who it plans to target, and what issues it will address.

Consider Capabilities for Model Deployment

Automating the process of deploying machine learning models will be one of the most significant challenges that data scientists and machine learning teams will confront at some point throughout the development lifecycle.

Since the value that machine learning models can bring to an organization is contingent on end-users having consistent access to insights, ML teams need to be aware of how to deploy their models in the most efficient and timely manner possible.

The first thing to do when deciding how to deploy a model is to figure out how its end users should to interact with its possible functionalities.

Prioritize Communication and Collaboration

Communication between project team members is critical for the development of good software; 59% of workers in the United States say communication is their team’s largest hurdle to overcome to ensure the project’s success. It is also vital to define and assign specific responsibilities to each team member. This ensures that each duty is properly defined and assigned, reducing the chance of unnecessary duplication of effort and maintaining order.

The more you document, the easier it will be to gather all of the information you’ll need to make better decisions. Project stages, bottlenecks, scope changes, and task dependencies are among the challenges. The principal members of the project management team should meet at regular intervals to ensure that everyone is up-to-date and informed about the project’s present state as well as the obstacles that it faces.

Recognize That the Only Constant Is Change

These changes may occur for a number of reasons, including a failure to ask the necessary questions at the proper time, a shift in the users’ attitudes or viewpoints, the company’s operational environment, or the market. The needs of a project are subject to significant amounts of change at the beginning phases of the project. At some point in time, the criteria need to be finalized.

Employ Source-Control Management

When you initially begin working on the project, you should put in place a source code management (SCM) system. The SCM version control system be applied to all documents, not just the source code. This allows the team to go back in time and review the project’s history, as well as keep copies of older versions of all project files, such as use cases, architectural and design documents, test scripts and plans, and so on.

Avoid Pushing Too Many Features

It’s tempting to keep adding new features that customers demand, but doing so may cause your program to lose value. Instead, focus on striking a balance between new functionality and rearrangement. Refactoring code is an important part of the software development process.

As the size of your software application grows, models may be updated, libraries may become obsolete, and the code structure may change. If these potential concerns are ignored, they will eventually become technical debt, which will increase with each version of the code that is not refactored.

Perform a Final and Post-Release Review

You should not leave your release until the last minute. At the start of the project, you should run tests on your system with configuration and data that are as close to the production environment as possible.

After you’ve finished all of your final tests, you’re ready to move on to the next step, deployment. The deployment strategy is adapted to the needs of your unique project. Your operations team should review and validate the deployment paperwork. Following the release of the product, you should review it to figure out which aspects of the project cycle were successful and which were not. As such, your team will be able to correctly alter its performance for the following task.