Feature Driven Development

Development Methodologies !!

Commercial Web development has been around for more than 10 years. As an industry, this one's still fairly young when you consider others that have been around for centuries. But relative youth as an industry is no excuse for not doing better.

quoted from Jeff Deluca (FDD Creator)

Feature Driven Development is a new development methodology used mainly for projects like web application which needs a set feature-set and functions.

Briefly, FDD consists of 5 clearly defined processes that can be captured in 5 pages. The core of FDD is the concept of a feature which is a clearly defined Client-valued piece of functionality. The processes that make up FDD are structured around defining every element of a project as a feature, then designing and building each feature in an iterative manner.

The five processes of the FDD methodology are:
1. Develop and Overall model
This is an initial project-wide activity with domain and development members under the guidance of an experienced object modeller in the role of Chief Architect.

2. Build features list
This is an initial project-wide activity to identify all the features required to support the project requirements.

3. Planning
Initial project-wide activity to produce the development plan.

4. Design by Feature
Involves a per-feature activity to produce the feature design package. This process is broken down into three steps: walkthrough, design and inspection.

5. Build by Feature
Involves a per-feature activity to produce a completed client-valued function (feature).


I suggest if you want a more in depth look into this methodology that you have a look at FDDs website here.