Section 14

Complete Checklist for All Phases

6 sub-sections in this chapter

Complete Checklist for All Phases

Phase 0: Discovery Checklist

CUSTOMER RESEARCH: ☐ 10+ customer interviews completed ☐ Interview notes documented ☐ Common pain points identified

☐ Market size estimated (TAM/SAM/SOM)

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS:

☐ 5+ competitors identified
☐ Feature comparison created
☐ Pricing comparison documented ☐ Differentiation identified

MARKET VALIDATION:

☐ Problem statement approved by stakeholders
☐ Solution concept validated with customers
☐ Market trend analysis completed
☐ Regulatory/compliance issues identified

BUSINESS CASE:

☐ Executive summary created
☐ Budget estimate prepared
☐ ROI projection calculated
☐ Risk assessment documented

EXECUTIVE APPROVAL:

☐ Sponsor identified and committed
☐ Budget approved
☐ Timeline approved
☐ Executive approval documented

Phase 1: Initiation Checklist

PROJECT CHARTER:

☐ Charter created & signed ☐ Project objectives defined (SMART)
☐ Success criteria established
☐ Stakeholders identified

TEAM FORMATION:

☐ Project team assigned
☐ RACI matrix created
☐ Roles & responsibilities documented ☐ Team kickoff meeting held

WORKSPACE SETUP:

☐ Slack channels created
☐ Git repository initialized ☐ Jira project configured
☐ Confluence space created

☐ CI/CD pipeline initialized

COMMUNICATION:

☐ Communication plan created ☐ Distribution lists established ☐ Meeting schedule set ☐ Escalation contacts documented

Phase 2: Planning Checklist REQUIREMENTS:

☐ MRD completed & approved ☐ PRD completed & approved ☐ 40+ user stories created in Jira ☐ RTG (Living Traceability Graph) initialized ☐ Requirements validated with stakeholders

ROADMAP & TIMELINE:

☐ Product roadmap created (12-month) ☐ MVP scope defined
☐ Sprint schedule created ☐ Milestones & dates established ☐ Dependencies mapped

RESOURCE PLANNING: ☐ Team size & skills defined ☐ Resource allocation completed ☐ Capacity planning done ☐ External resources identified

BUDGET & FINANCIALS:

☐ Detailed budget created ☐ Cost breakdown by phase ☐ Contingency (15-20%) included ☐ Budget approved

RISK MANAGEMENT:

☐ Risk register created ☐ 10+ risks identified
☐ Mitigation strategies defined
☐ Risk owners assigned
☐ Risk review schedule set

TECHNOLOGY:

☐ Tech stack selected
☐ Architecture approach decided
☐ Build vs. buy decisions made ☐ Integration points identified
☐ Infrastructure requirements defined

Phase 3: Design Checklist

UI/UX DESIGN:

☐ Design system created ☐ 15+ screen mockups created
☐ Wireframes completed
☐ Prototype created & interactive ☐ Design review meeting held ☐ Stakeholder approval obtained

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE:

☐ High-level architecture diagram ☐ Component architecture defined
☐ Deployment architecture planned ☐ Scalability approach documented ☐ Architecture review completed

DETAILED DESIGN:

☐ HLD document completed
☐ LLD documents for all components
☐ Security architecture designed
☐ Monitoring & observability design

DATABASE DESIGN:

☐ ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram) created
☐ Schema designed & normalized
☐ Indexes planned
☐ Query performance considered
☐ Backup strategy defined

API SPECIFICATIONS:

☐ API endpoints documented (20+)
☐ Request/response formats defined
☐ Error codes documented
☐ Authentication/authorization designed ☐ Rate limiting strategy defined
☐ API review completed

APPROVAL:

☐ Design review sign-off obtained
☐ Architecture review completed
☐ Stakeholder approval
☐ Technical feasibility confirmed

Phase 4: Development Checklist

SETUP:

☐ Development environment documented
☐ Docker setup completed
☐ Database initialized with seed data
☐ API keys configured
☐ IDE configuration documented
☐ Coding standards documented

DEVELOPMENT:

☐ Code written for all user stories
☐ Code follows coding standards ☐ >80% test coverage on critical paths
☐ All features peer-reviewed
☐ No TODO comments in production code

VERSION CONTROL:

☐ All code in Git
☐ Meaningful commit messages
☐ Feature branches named correctly
☐ PRs describe changes clearly
☐ Code review policy enforced

TESTING:

☐ Unit tests written
☐ Integration tests created
☐ All tests passing
☐ Build artifacts created
☐ CI/CD pipeline working

DOCUMENTATION:

☐ Code comments added
☐ API documentation updated
☐ README updated
☐ Architecture documentation current
☐ Known issues documented

QUALITY:

☐ SonarQube checks passing
☐ No critical code smell issues
☐ No security vulnerabilities
☐ Performance acceptable
☐ Linting/formatting consistent

Phase 5: Testing Checklist TEST PLANNING:

☐ Test plan created ☐ Test strategy defined
☐ Test scenarios identified (100+)
☐ Test data prepared ☐ Test environment setup

FUNCTIONAL TESTING:

☐ All user stories tested
☐ Acceptance criteria validated ☐ Edge cases tested ☐ Error scenarios tested ☐ Integration points tested

PERFORMANCE TESTING:

☐ Load testing completed (1000+ users) ☐ Stress testing completed ☐ Response time acceptable (<200ms) ☐ No memory leaks detected
☐ Database queries optimized

SECURITY TESTING:

☐ SQL injection tests passed
☐ XSS tests passed ☐ CSRF protection verified
☐ Authentication/authorization tested ☐ Vulnerability scan completed ☐ 0 critical/high vulnerabilities

AUTOMATED TESTING:

☐ Unit test suite: 500+ tests ☐ Integration tests: 50+ tests ☐ E2E tests: 30+ tests ☐ >90% test pass rate

MANUAL TESTING:

☐ Regression testing completed
☐ Usability testing with real users
☐ Accessibility testing completed ☐ Browser compatibility tested ☐ Mobile responsiveness tested

UAT:

☐ UAT environment prepared
☐ Real users testing
☐ All P0 bugs fixed & verified
☐ Client sign-off obtained

QUALITY GATES:

☐ Bug escape rate <1 per 1000 LOC
☐ Test pass rate >95%
☐ Performance targets met
☐ Security clearance obtained

Phase 6: Deployment Checklist

PRE-DEPLOYMENT:

☐ Code freeze enforced
☐ Final build tested
☐ Database backups taken & tested
☐ Production credentials distributed
☐ Monitoring configured & tested
☐ Alerting rules tested
☐ On-call team assigned & briefed
☐ Rollback plan reviewed & practiced
☐ Go/No-Go decision approved

RELEASE PREPARATION:

☐ Release notes created
☐ Deployment procedure documented ☐ Rollback procedure documented
☐ Smoke tests prepared
☐ Production checklist completed

DEPLOYMENT EXECUTION:

☐ Code deployed to production
☐ Database migrations successful
☐ Smoke tests pass
☐ Error rate <0.1%
☐ Performance acceptable
☐ No data loss

POST-DEPLOYMENT:

☐ 24-hour monitoring completed
☐ No critical issues
☐ Customer communications sent
☐ Support team trained
☐ Status update to stakeholders
☐ System stable for 24 hours

Phase 7: Operations Checklist

MONITORING & ALERTING:

☐ Real-time dashboards operational
☐ Alert rules configured
☐ Alert routing verified
☐ On-call rotation working
☐ Incident response procedures tested

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT:

☐ Incident response process documented
☐ Escalation contacts listed
☐ War room setup procedures created ☐ Communication templates prepared ☐ Post-incident review process defined

SUPPORT:

☐ Support team trained
☐ Ticketing system operational
☐ SLAs defined & published
☐ Support procedures documented
☐ FAQ created

OPERATIONS PROCEDURES:

☐ Runbooks created for common issues
☐ Backup procedures documented
☐ Recovery procedures tested
☐ Admin procedures documented
☐ Database maintenance scheduled

METRICS & REPORTING:

☐ Success metrics defined
☐ Dashboards created
☐ Weekly status reports scheduled
☐ Stakeholder communication plan
☐ Retrospective meeting scheduled

Phase 8: Closure Checklist

RETROSPECTIVE:

☐ Post-launch retrospective held
☐ Notes documented
☐ Action items assigned
☐ Team feedback collected

LESSONS LEARNED:

☐ Lessons learned document created
☐ Best practices documented
☐ Improvement opportunities identified
☐ Process improvements planned

PROJECT CLOSURE:

☐ Financial reconciliation completed
☐ Team members released
☐ Knowledge transfer completed
☐ Team recognition/celebration
☐ Vendor contracts finalized

ARCHIVE & DOCUMENTATION:

☐ All documents collected
☐ Final project report created
☐ Code repository archived
☐ Design files backed up
☐ Database backups retained (7-year)

TRANSITION TO OPERATIONS:

☐ Operations team fully trained
☐ Runbooks finalized
☐ Monitoring fully configured
☐ Support procedures documented
☐ Escalation contacts updated

SIGN-OFF:

☐ PM approval
☐ Sponsor approval
☐ Operations approval
☐ Project formally closed

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