Ten Commandments of Successful Software Development 13 #10 Thou shalt implement and always adhere to a production acceptance process Mentioned several times already in the first nine commandments, our last commandment centers around the use of the Web-Centric Production Acceptance (WCPA) process presented in Chapter 13. In our book we focus on the WCPA as tailored for web-centric applications. The WCPA is really a superset of the Client-Server Production Acceptance (CSPA) process presented in Managing the New Enterprise. Most of the WCPA will be useful even if you are not yet designing web-centric applications. Production acceptance takes an application from the early stages of development and into a production status. However, planning for WCPA really begins at the first stages of the software development process. This is where we first start getting users involved, and keeping them involved throughout the development process through the use of customer project teams. At the same time, the development team needs to start getting IT operations involved. The WCPA shows that it is never too early to start getting both users and operations involved. One of the reasons we developed the WCPA is to serve as a communications vehicle. All too often, development organizations are isolated from the business groups who will use their application and the operations group that will run and maintain them. Proper use of the WCPA will help promote and instill good communication practices. Just as iterative development is a key software develop- ment process, so to is iterative and ongoing communications with operations and with users. This commandment is important because, without a closely followed WCPA, your business may lose valuable revenue or even customers because your web-centric application does not function as expected. Perhaps one of the earliest examples of a WCPA can be traced to Netscape' web server when they first opened for business in mid-1994. When designing their web site, Netscape engineers studied the web server load of their competitor at the time, the Mosaic web site at the