Overview

In the Build (or Implementation) process you create, test and document the system which you have specified and designed. It s very important to perform these three activities together, for all the management and planning reasons explained earlier, and so that you carry forward a product of known content and quality into the final stages.

The product of this process is not code , it s tested code, and documented functions . The programmers must understand that they have a prime responsibility to trap the errors at source, rather than leaving them for the testers to uncover. They must also support the other activities, and you must plan and manage them.

It s important to set the right objectives for testing. You can t prove that the system works , but you can try to find errors, and by finding and fixing them improve your confidence that the system will meet its requirements. The testing must be comprehensive, documented and repeatable. You should view it as a central part of an overall quality control process, which also employs inspection s, reviews, walkthroughs and the efforts of the documenters, all to the same aim.

This is not a period of unbridled creativity. Keep to the agreed functions and design, and concentrate on controlling changes, keeping the existing deliverables up-to-date. Maintaining control of the configuration (the set of items which make up the whole system) is vital to ensure you can deliver the system to the later stages, and then maintain...