One of the challenges we run into developing software is the changing of priorities throughout the development cycle. The only projects I’ve seen that do not suffer from changing priorities are those with only a handful of requirements that are all necessary for deliver. But given a project of reasonable size and you can feel assured that at some point the requirements priority order is going to change.

How do you handle changing priorities and keep your projects on track? Simple, communication. Make sure you’re development cycle for any project completely visible to your customer. A good method, and just happens to be the one we utilize, is maintain and work from “The List” (as described in Ship It!). The short version of the description is keep a list that is the single source of all project requirements. Keep this list ordered by priority with the highest priority first. ALWAYS be working on the item(s) at the top of the list.

At SDP we try to review and prioritize (if necessary) our larger projects at least every 2 weeks, more if the client has an unscheduled need. There are a lot of tracking tools available to keep up with your requirements. Overtime we’ve developed our own internal system with notification and an approval process that allows SDP employee’s or customers to change the priority at any time on a project. Developers and project managers can then take action as necessary.

Track your requirements and priorities using any method you are comfortable with. The key is to stay on top of the important requirements and communicate with your customer to ensure you understand what requirements are most important at any given time during the project.