Software Development Life Cycle Social Media Software Implementation Project

Social media is an important aspect of every business today because it gives companies a unique chance to understand the customers better and to interact with them at a more personal level. A wide range of social networking tools are used by companies to attract customers to the products and services offered by the company and this makes social media software implementation essential for every project.

The first step is to identify the goals of social networking to the company. Its important to make a list of things that are expected out of the software and what it aims to achieve. When this is identified, the next step is to work on the design and the technology. Most companies today prefer not to concentrate too much on the technology, but rather on the end-result and ease of use from the employees' and customers' point-of-view. So, a software developing company should keep this aspect in mind and try to design a system that ranks high in user-friendliness and end-results. Another aspect that is important for companies is the speed. They are not interested in a system that takes forever to load and operate. This is especially true of real time communication software such as video conferencing and instant messaging. The last specification that they look for is lively interaction with social media users and the software should facilitate this.

The above specifications are broad and are expected from any software. Other than these, the software developers should work with the company and identify the other requirements such as the social media platforms they want to use, the typical number of users that may use the system on any given day and anything else that may be necessary to develop the system.

The next phase is the design and development phase where the system architects design a system that matches the requirements while the developers begin coding on the different modules. As most companies use agile methodology today, testing will be integrated from the initial stages itself. This iterative processes repeats itself to ensure that there are no errors in the system. Once the entire system is developed, then its time to do a complete testing of the system to check if it meets the requirements and if each of the parts are working well independently and in collaboration with one another.

The last and one of the more important phases of social media implementation is documentation. This is vital to make use of the existing resources more efficiently. For example, when a customer contacts the support with an unusual request, considerable time and effort is spent on providing the right solution. This has to be documented so that the next time when another customer calls in with a similar request, lesser resources are needed to provide the solution. This makes it possible for the company to harness the true power of social media to the best possible extent.

The last part about social media is configuration management and maintenance. As the technology changes, its important to continue to incorporate them into the software and for this, change management, configuration management and maintenance are important. Most companies dedicate a team that takes care of the maintenance and this team consists of developers and testers.

Overall, a well developed and implemented social media software is likely to provide huge benefits to the organization in terms of increased productivity and better interaction with customers.

Importance of a Project Manager

Every project manager plays an important role in the overall success and execution of a project. All projects come with constraints with respect to time, scope and budget and this makes the project manager the central figure for every project because he or she takes responsibility for the success or failure of it....

In short, the project manager owns the product or the project and assumes responsibility from the beginning to the end.
Most projects begin after a contract has been signed with the client and a project manager is assigned to it. It is the duty of the project manager to identify the right resources for each resource and recruit them internally from other teams or hire them through external sources. While assembling a team, the project manager also looks into the personality of individuals and their ability to work together in a team.

Once the team is assembled, the project manager briefs the team about the scope of the project and assigns tasks to each of the members. The manager is actively involved in the requirements gathering phase as it helps him or her to get a better understanding of what the client wants and how best it can be done with the existing resources. Once the requirements phase ends, the project manager monitors the work of each team member and ensures that the deadlines and goals for each period are met. The team members also approach the manager in case of any queries and problems and the project manager does his or her best to resolve them.

The project manager's role is to maintain the morale of the team as well as a healthy relationship with the client. Its important to understand that he or she is not involved in business development or finding projects, rather it is his or her responsibility to deliver an existing project successfully. To do this, the manager strives to maintain a good relationship with all the concerned parties. He or she ensures that all members in a team work with each other in a smooth and professional manner.

Personality clashes or disputes are resolved by the manager as amicably as possible and this is one of the prominent tasks. Its also the project manager's task to motivate the team members so that they give their best every time. The project manager strives to identify the right talent and provide them good incentives including recognition to encourage and motivate them. Lastly, the project manager is the visionary of the project. He or she has certain goals for the project, lays down a road map and ensures that the goals are met at the end.

Due to all these reasons, the project manager has the most important role in any project and he or she is the driving force behind its successful implementation.

Importance of Regression Testing

Regression testing is a kind of testing that helps to find out new errors or bugs in a software. The idea behind regression testing is to ensure that the addition of a new feature or any other change made to some parts of the code do not result in more errors in the system. It is an important part of system maintenance where minor changes or additions may be made to the software from time to time. These changes will take place only in small pockets and regression testing aims to ensure that it did not cause errors in other parts of the software.

One common way to execute regression testing is to run the existing test cases again to check for the emergence of new errors. Also, it checks to see if the program continues to function the way it should without altering its behavior. Lastly, it checks to see if any of the errors reported earlier have emerged due to the changes made to the software.

Regression testing can be broadly divided into two kinds -- unit testing and functional testing. Functional testing tests the entire software with varying inputs to check for failures while unit tests aim to test each unit of code or function that was modified. Both these tests are essential for the successful running of a software.

Regression testing is useful in many ways. Firstly, it helps to ensure that the software is exhibiting the same behavior even after changes were made to it. It checks for consistency and this can be vital during a routine…