Software Management Plans (SMPs)
Exploring the SMP Questionnaire (15 minutes)
In a live setting, this exercise is done in groups of three. Each group will be assigned a software project. The group will then explore the SMP questionnaire for this project.
Step 1: Choose a software project
Choose a software project for this exercise, preferably one you are familiar with.
If you don't have a project in mind, you can use one of the following:
Step 2: Explore the SMP Questionnaire
- Open the SMP questionnaire at smp.research.software
- Fold out the "Scope" and "Software Management" tables of content (click on the triangle)
- Provide different answers for the "Scope" questions and observe which other "Scope", or "Software Management" items appear or vanish
The question categories are as follows:
Mandatory
- Name & Purpose
- Access (scope question)
- Reuse (scope question)
- Authors
- Ownership
- Research Context
- Versioning
- Risks
- Data Management Plan
Optional
- Users (scope question)
- Community (scope question)
- License
- Documentation
- Citation
- Maintenance
- Sustainability
- Support
- Software Quality Checklist
- Packaging
Step 3: Discussion
DCCs provide a guidelines for each requirement in which cases it should or should not be included in the SMP. The SMP questionnaire makes an educated guess about this.
Do you agree with the selection of criteria?
Step 4: Homework
Fill in a complete SMP for one of your existing or future projects at home. Download the completed SMP Word file!