FLiP Overview
An Overview of FLiP
While Fusebox is a framework for building web applications, FLiP (the Fusebox Lifecycle Process) is a project management methodology for producing repeated software project successes.
Success rates for custom software are improving, but according to the Standish Group, failure is still the norm. The most common complaint: software doesn't do what users want it to.
This isn't a technical, but a software process failure. The problem is that users don't know what they want until they see it.
The typical software project involves the user at two points in the process:
- at the beginning, when it's too early for users to give good feedback, and
- at the end, when it's too late for the feedback to be of use
FLiP insists that no technical architecting be done until the user interface (the "front end") is complete -- so complete that users can try out the software before it's actually built.
Once the front end is done, software architecture can take place with a high degree of assurance that we know what users really want. Contrast this with the normal state of affairs, where developers make changes (expensive changes) to code. It's no wonder that more than 50% of projects end as failures, where customers are unhappy and developers are burnt out.
FLiP frees developers to work only on customer-approved features and functions. And this can be determined by customer liaisons, saving developers to work on code that meets known customer needs.
The use of Fusedocs, the XML-based program definition language used by Fuseboxers, means that once the architecture is complete, developers can quickly write the granular code files ("fuses") produced by the Fusebox architecture process.
Finally, FLiP provides that all completed fuses be accompanied by a "test harness" that assures the fuse lives up to its responsibilities as outlined in the Fusedoc.
For more information on FLiP, see Jeff Peters' book, Fusebox 4 & FLiP: Master Class , at www.protonarts.com.