Standard Doc Set

[Jim Barrow]

Now that my company's latest project is wrapping up, we're looking for
new adventures.  That is, upper-management is looking around to
see what software should be built, replatformed. re-engineered, etc.  To
that end they've asked my group to detail what a "complete doc set" should
consist of.

The upper-manager who sent me the email specifically said that he wants 
me to 'create a plan that details a complete set of requirement docs,' but since 
he's out with the flu, I can only assume that he meant a complete doc set.
I'm fairly sure that there's only one or two documents that can be written for
requirements.

So I wrote a two-page explanation of what our company *should* do when 
embarking on a project (best practices) as well as a detailed explanation of 
what I thought a complete doc set sould be.  From memory this included the 
following (in order):

- Problem Statement
- Solution Set
- Functional Analysis
- Requirements
- Project Plan, etc.

There were 15 documents in my core set, and they went from the Problem Statement 
above down to QA, Test Plan and End User Documentation.

My guiding principle was the belief that anyone could walk in off the street, read these 
15 documents, and have a complete understanding of why we undertook a project, and
how we went about solving the problem.

>From your lessons learned, is there any one document that you recall being absolutely
necessary in a standard software project doc set?

Thanks,

Jim