Introduction

Purpose

A guide to managing software development projects for Digital Health and Care Wales.

Scope

In-scope

• Good practice for requirements gathering, building, testing, and deploying software.

• Practical checklists for good practice.

Out-of-scope

• Broader lifecycle topics, including project inception, software architecture, user acceptance testing and operations.

• Guidance on publishing software as open source.

• In-depth instructions; this guide links to other standards instead.

Roles and responsibilities

Application and Product teams in the Operations and Primary Care and Mental Health directorates have a responsibility to follow this guide.

References

1. Digital Service Standard for Wales
2. Welsh Technical Standards Board Statement of Principles
3. How to request and manage software subscriptions
4. Using Source Control
5. T-SQL Coding Standard
6. RESTful API Design and Build Standards
7. How to Organise Your Software Solution
8. General Coding Standards
9. Azure DevOps handbook
10. Informatics Systems in Wales, National Assembly for Wales, Public Accounts Committee
11. SOP-OSD-004 - Web Applications
12. SOP-OSD-005 - Encryption in Transit
13. SOP-OSD-006 - Application Programming Interfaces

Conventions

The key words MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

The need for guidance

Developing software for healthcare needs consistent, robust practices. Following clear processes and good practice helps you deliver robust and secure solutions.