General procedures for system feature enhancement

Feature Spec - Identify the goal.

• Feature(s) request received.
• Breakdown requests into small request items.
• Clarity requirements if necessary.

Design & Planning - Draw a direction map.

• List out the required changes.
• List out new functionality/methods needed.
• List out side effects.
• Reuse existing functionalities if possible.
• Ensure DRY (Don't repeat yourself)
• Open for future changes.
• Double check all usage scenarios.
• Run new features on mind map.
• Feasibility studies if necessary.
• Division of Labour.
• Estimate schedule.

Implementation - Work through the map.

• Create test cases.
• Implementation.
• Refine the feature and details during implementation.

Testing

• QA test
• User Acceptance test

Demo

• User demo
• Get user feedback
• Go back to feature spec cycle upon user feedback.

Staging Release

• Deployment to stage server
• Pre-release final checks.

Production Release

• Release to production.

User Training

• Conduct user training on new features.