PMBOK...step by step...step 4

THE STANDARD FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT OF A PROJECT...A process is a set of interlaced actions and activities performed to achieve a pre-specified product,result or a service. To achieve project goals balance demands of scope,time,cost,quality,resources and risk. Project processes in general belong to one of two categories:Project management processes and Product oriented processes.

Project managers and their teams should carefully address each process and its constituent inputs and outputs.This effort is known as tailoring. Be aware of the fact that project exist within an organization and can not operate as a closed system. The project processes may generate information to improve the management of the future projects.

PM processes are grouped in 5 PM Process Groups:

• Initiating Process Group


• Planning Process Group


• Executing Process Group


• Monitoring and Controlling Process Group


• Closing Process Group

COMMON PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS INTERACTIONS - The PM processes are discrete elements with well defined interfaces, but application of the PM processes is iterative and many processes are repeated during the project. When a project is divided into phases,the Process Groups are invoked as appropriate to effectively drive the project to completion in a controlled manner

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS GROUPS - The Process Groups are not project phases. When complex project is separated into distinct phases or sub-projects, all of the Process Groups will be repeated for each phase or sub-project.

INITIATING PROCESS GROUP: define new project or new phase in a existing project; define scope, define internal and external stakeholders; select project manager; write project charter. Involving customers and other stakeholders during initiation generally improves the probability of shared ownership, deliverable acceptance and customer and other stakeholder satisfaction. Initiating process may be performed by organizational, program or portfolio processes external to the project's scope of control. As part of the initiating process the project manager is given the authority to apply organizational resources to the subsequent project activities.

• DEVELOP PROJECT CHARTER - develop a document that formally authorizes a project or a phase and document initial requirements that satisfy the stakeholder's needs and expectations.


• IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERS - identify all people and organizations impacted by the project,document relevant information regarding their interests,involvement and impact on project success.


• PLANNING PROCESS GROUP - ...establish scope,define objectives,develop course of actions;develop project management plan and project documents. The progressive detailing of the project management plan is often called rolling wave planning, indicating that planing and documentation are iterative and ongoing processes. Planing process group:
  
  • Project scope management: collect requirements,define scope,create WBS
  
  
  • Project time management: define activities,sequence activities,estimate activity resources,estimate activity durations,develop schedule
  
  
  • Project cost management: estimate costs,determine budget
  
  
  • Project quality management: plan quality
  
  
  • Project human resource management: develop human resource plan
  
  
  • Project communications management:plan communications
  
  
  • Project procurement management: plan procurements
  
  
  • Project risk management: plan risk management, identify risks, perform qualitative risk analysis, perform quantitative risk analysis, plan risk responses
  
  
  • Project management plan: Based on on all plans above develop
  
  


• DEVELOP PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN ...page 78..more to come

PMBOK...step by step...step 3

STAKEHOLDERS - persons or organizations(customer,sponsor,etc), who are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion the project.

Stakeholders have different levels of responsibility and authority;it can be changed during the project life cycle (from occasional contributions to full project sponsorship). Identifying stakeholders and understand their relative degree of influence on a project is critical; failure on that extend time-line and raise costs.

Examples of stakeholders

• customers/users - may be internal or external,they will use result;
  
• sponsor - person or group that provides the financial resources in cash or in kind;sponsor may be involved in authorizing changes in scope,phase-end reviews,go/no-go decisions when risks are high.
  
• Portfolio managers/Portfolio review board - they review each project for its return of investment,the vale of project,risk and other project attributes
  
• Program managers - responsible for managing related projects in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually.
  
• Project management office - centralized and coordinated management of those projects under its domain. PMO can: provide policies,methodologies,templates;training,mentoring,coaching of PM;project support,guidance,training;centralized communication among project managers
  
• Project managers - PM should:develop pr plan and related component plan;keep project on track in terms of budget and schedule;identify,monitor and respond to risk;provide accurate and timely reporting of project metrics.
  
• Project team
  
• Functional managers - play management role in administrative or functional area of business:HR,finance,accounting,procurement.
  
• Operations management - management role in a core business area:research,development,design,testing,maintenance.
  
• Sellers/business partners - vendors,suppliers,contractors
  

ORGANIZATIONAL INFLUENCES ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT... The organizational culture,style and structure,and organizations PM maturity influence on how the projects are performed.

• Organizational cultures and styles: known as "Cultural norms", influence on projects ability to meet defined objectives. Many organizations share same cultural norms like policies, methods,working hours,work ethic etc. The project manager must know who are the key players and decision makers in the organization and collaborate with them to ensure project goals achievement.
  


• Organizational structure: affect the availability of resources. Organizational structures range from functional to projectized with a variety of matrix structures between them. The classic functional organization is based on a hierarchy where each employee has one clear superior. Matrix organizations are blend of functional and projectized characteristics,from weak matrices similar to functional to strong matrices similar to projectized organization. Many organizations use different structures on different levels.


• Organizational Process Assets - formal and informal plans,policies,procedures,guidelines,knowledge basis(learned lessons,hystorical informations) etc
  
  
  
  • 1.Processes and Procedures:safety and health policy,ethics policy,product and project life cycle, guidelines,work instructions,templates, organizational communication requirements, time reporting, financial control procedures, issue and defect management procedures etc
    
  
  
  • 2. Corporate Knowledge Base - process measurement databases, historical information and lessons learned, issue and defect status, configuration management knowledge basis, financial databases etc.
  
  
  
  

PMBOK - step by step... step 2

PROJECT LIFE CYCLE AND ORGANIZATION - Project and project management exists in an environment that is Weider than project itself.

PROJECT LIFE-CYCLE is a collection of generally sequential and sometimes overlapping project phases, determined by the management, organizations involved in the project,the nature of project, and array of application.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - In general, all projects have the following life cycle structure:

• start of the project
  
• organize and prepare
  
• work on project
  
• close the project

Ability ti influence to the final outcome of the project's product is highest at the start with minimal cost,later during the time,the cost grows.

PRODUCT VS PROJECT LIFE CYCLE RELATIONSHIPS - In general, a project lifer cycle contains one or more product life cycles. But project where the objective is service or result,contains no product life cycle; and can be a product that contains several projects*example: develop new automobile is based on several independent projects.

PROJECT PHASES - the phase structure of the project allow to segment project into logical subsets and improve ease of management,planing and control.

All phases has similar characteristics:

• at the end of phase transfer some work to the next stage; this point in phase is known as milestone,phase gate,decision gate,stage gate,kill point
  
• there are some single phase projects, other projects can have many phases.
  
• some organizations have standardized projects, other allow project management team to choose the most appropriate for the individual project.
  

PROJECT GOVERNANCE ACROSS THE LIFE CYCLE - the project governance approach should be described in project management plan, it must fit in context of program or organization sponsoring it. The phase structure provide basis for control, each phase specify what is allowed and expected for that phase. The beginning of a phase is also a time to re validate earlier assumptions,review risjs and define in more detail the processes necessary to complete the phase deliverable(s).

A review of both key deliverable and project performance:

• determine if the project should continue into its next phase
• and detect and correct errors cost effectively,

should be regarded as good practice.

PHASE TO PHASE RELATIONSHIPS - There are 3 basic types of phase to phase relationships:

• a sequential relationship - phase can start when previos is complete;reduces uncertanity,but reduce schedule is not posible
  
• an overlapping relationship - phase start prior to complete previous one;may increase risk;
  
• an iterative relationship - only one phase is planned , the next one is planned as work progresses in current;useful in research;reduce ability for long planning.
  

PROJECTS VS OPERATIONAL WORK - work in organization can be project or operations work.They differs in that operations are ongoing and produce repetitive results,projects are tempoerary and they end.When operation achieve goal,it is not ended,it follow new direction.Operations work supports the bussiness environment where projects are executed. Depending of nature of the project,project outcome may contribute existing operations work(for example:developing,acquiring or enhancing an operational depatments'information system)

PMBOK - step by step... step 1

A PROJECT is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product,service or result.

The temporary nature of project indicates existing of definitive begging and end.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT is the application of knowledge,skills,tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.

Project management is accomplished through application and integration of 42 project management processes,logically organized in 5 process groups.

5 PM PROCESS GROUPS are: Initiating, Planing, Executing,Monitoring and Controlling and Closing.

Because of potential to change , the project management plan is iterative and through PROGRESSIVE ELABORATION through the project's life cycle. Progressive elaboration includes continual improve and detailing a plan as more detailed and specific information and more accurate estimates become available. Progressive elaboration allows a project management team to manage a greater level of details the project evolves.

In mature Project management organizations,project management exists in a broader context of a Program management and Portfolio management

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT - PORTFOLIOcan be viewed as a collection of project or programs or other work grouped together to facilitate effective management of that work to meet strategic business objectives. Portfolio management focus on ensuring that projects and programs are reviewed to prioritize resource allocation, and that the management of portfolio is consistent with and aligned to organizational strategies.

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT - A program is defined as a group of related projects, managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually. PROGRAMS may include elements of related work outside the scope of discrete projects in the program.

PROJECTS AND STRATEGIC PLANING - Projects, within programs or portfolios, are means of achieving organizational goals and objectives, often in a context of a strategic plan.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE PMO is organizational body or entity assigned various responsibilities related to centralized and coordinated management of those projects under its domain. A primary function of PMO is to support project managers:

• manage shared resources across all project managed by PMO
  
• identify and develop methodology,best practices,standards
  
• coaching,mentoring,training
  
• project audits
  
• coordinating communication across all projects
  

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT - Projects need project management, while operations need business process management or operations management. Operations are permanent endeavors, while projects are temporary endeavors, Operations produce repetitive outputs .

THE PROJECT MANAGER is the person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. Effective project management requires that the project manager has following: has knowledge, achieve performance and personal(personal effectnives encompasses attitudes, core personality characteristisc and leadership.

PMBOK is standard for managing most of the projects,most of the time.

ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS may have positive or negative outcome of the project, and they include, but not limited to:

• organizational culture,structure and proccesses
  
• standards
  
• infrastructure
  
• HR(skills,discipline,knowledge)
  
• marketplace conditions
  
• stakeholder risk tolerancies
  
• political environment
  
• communication channels in the organisation
  
• PM information system
  

What's really motivates people?

Project managers,be aware of one simple truth - people are different, don't try to motivate every team member with the same method applied.You are not working with the machines. Every satisfied and motivated player in the team is one key to build yourself as a successfull project manager.

Seavus products...

Try some product from Seavus family of products:


Seavus Project Viewer:



Seavus Project Planner:



DropMind™ (both Web and Desktop):

Team deveopment phase in Project Management

Plans and project management techniques are necessary to ensure success, but it is the people - the project manager and the project team, that are the key to project success. To ensure success of project various structures are used to organize people to work on them. Communication is most essential part in a project team, it should be good with the customers, within the project team and with the upper management is critical to success. The purpose of team building is to improve the ability of the group to solve problems and to work effectively on the project at hand. Efforts should be directed at achieving some specific targets.

Stages in Project Management Team development:

1. Forming: Forming is the initial stage of the team development process. It involves the transition from individual to the team member. During this stage, team members generally have positive expectations and are eager to perform their tasks. The group begins to establish an identity the tasks and attempts to define and plan the tasks that need to be done. However in this phase small amount of work is accomplished because of the team member’s high expectations and their relationship with the other members in the project. Team members are unsure about their own roles and other members of the project team. During this stage, the project member needs to provide direction and structure, the project manager must clearly communicate the project objective and create a vision for successful completion of the project.

2. Storming: The second stage in the project management team development is storming. In this stage the project objective is made clear to all project members. Team members need to apply their skills to work on their assigned tasks. The storming stage is characterized by feelings of frustration, anger and hostility as the team members begin to perform their work, and they have more questions about their own responsibilities and roles with respect to other team members. The project manage still needs to be directive, but less directive than in the forming stage. It’s important to give team members to give opportunity to express their concerns. The project manager has the responsibility to resolve conflicts and dissatisfaction among the team members.

3. Norming: In this stage, the relationships among team members and between the team and the project manager have become settled. Interpersonal conflicts have been resolved for most part i.e. level of conflict is lower than in the storming stage. Dissatisfaction, too, is reduced as individual expectations align. Control and decision-making have been transferred from project manager to the project team. Trust, appreciation among the team members, sharing of information, regular feedbacks, personal friendship etc will develop in this stage. During this stage the project manager minimizes the directiveness and takes more supporting role.

4. Performing: The final stage in the tem development is the performing stage. In this stage, the team is highly committed and eager to achieve project objective. The level of work performance is high. Communication between the team members is unambiguous, honest and timely. There is a greater degree of interdependency. The project manager fully delegates responsibility and authority thereby empowering the project team. At this stage the project manager concentrates on project performance with respect to budget, schedule, scope, and plan.

Factors that contribute to ensure successful team work:

1. Commitment to the purpose of the system is never perfunctory, and motivation always high.
2. Teamwork is focused on task. The members of the project team develop behaviours that enable them to do what they must.
3. The project leadership is strong, clear, reliable and never ambivalent

Qualities the team should have are:

1. Clear understanding of project objectives.
2. Clear expectations of each person role and responses.
3. High degree of co-operation.
4. A high level of trust.

Project Management for Dummies - learn with me...

Let's start to introduce ourselves with the core of project management...First to resolve one thing, in software development process(or any process that need to be managed), you have to take active role - either to be leader or to be follower - you can not choose to not take any role...do not watch, just act in order to fulfill your role.We can not learn everything here, this blog post main idea is just to introduce us with some guiding lines.

These are small, but important starting points in project management life cycle. If you, as responsible project management involve these points in your every day work, you will increase changes to fulfill your mission and decrease number of errors made.

• ...Whenever you involve people in the plan’s development at the start of the project, you encourage their commitment to achieving it.
  


• ... The pressure to get fast results encourages people to skip the planning and get right to the tasks. This strategy can create a lot of immediate activity, but it also creates significant chances for waste and mistakes.
  


• ...Hold a post-project evaluation to recognize project achievements and to discuss lessons you can apply to the next project.if you don’t take positive steps to apply the lessons this project’s taught you, you’re likely to make the same mistakes again or fail to repeat this project’s successful approaches.
  


• ... Perform the feasibility study (this is a formal investigation to determine the likely success of performing certain work or achieving certain results).
  


• Make your objectives SMART, as follows:
  • Specific: Define your objective clearly, in detail, with no room for misinterpretation.
  • Measurable: Specify the measures or indicators you’ll use to determine whether you’ve met your objective.
  • Aggressive: Set challenging objectives that encourage people to stretch beyond their comfort zones.
  • Realistic: Set objectives the project team believes it can achieve.
  • Time-sensitive: Include the date by which you’ll achieve the objective.
  
• 
  

How to be an Effective Project Manager?

Questions
1. Are you more concerned about being everyone’s friend or getting a job done right?
2. Do you prefer to do technical work or manage other people doing technical work?
3. Do you think the best way to get a tough task done is to do it yourself?
4. Do you prefer your work to be predictable or constantly changing?
5. Do you prefer to spend your time developing ideas instead of explaining those ideas to other people?
6. Do you handle crises well?
7. Do you prefer to work by yourself or with others?
8. Do you think you shouldn’t have to monitor people after they’ve promised to do a task for you?
9. Do you believe people should be self-motivated to perform their jobs?
10. Are you comfortable dealing with people at all organizational levels?
Answers
1. Although maintaining good working relations is important, the project manager often must make decisions for the good of the project that some people don’t agree with.

2. Most project managers achieved their position because of their strong performance on technical tasks. However, after you become a project manager, your job is to encourage other people to produce high-quality technical work rather than to do it all yourself.

3. Believing in yourself is important. However, the project manager’s task is to help other people develop to the point where they can perform tasks with the highest quality.

4. The project manager tries to minimize unexpected problems and situations through responsive planning and timely control. However, when problems do occur, the project manager must deal with them promptly to minimize their impact on the project.

5. Though coming up with ideas can help your project, the project manager’s main responsibility is to ensure everyone correctly understands all ideas that are developed.

6. The project manager’s job is to provide a cool head to size up the situation, choose the best action, and encourage all members to do their parts in implementing the solution.

7. Self-reliance and self-motivation are important characteristics for a project manager. However, the key to her success is to facilitate interaction among a diverse group of technical specialists.

8. Although you may feel that honoring one’s commitments is a fundamental element of professional behavior, the project manager should ensure that people maintain their focus and should model how to cooperatively work with others.

9. They should be, but the project manager should encourage them to remain motivated by their job assignments and related opportunities.

10. The project manager deals with people at all levels, from upper management to support staff, who perform project-related activities.

Thanks to Stanley E.Portny and his excellent book Project Management for Dummies , in which these words can be found...

Http debugging....tools and practices

Hi to all,
this is my first blog, so don't be to strict in jugging my words.
I would try to present my point of view in HTTP debugging process.

There is a bunch of free and payable tools that life of one web developer can make more comfortable. My opinion is that this post can be helpful to all web developers. no matter on which technology are based. Asp.net, java, php and other technologies developers are at least one in their work enforced to do some kind of low level HTTP debugging. No more talk, let's do something "in medias res".

In process of developing some .net service for Google documents API, and more for Google documents based on Protocol 3, I needed to see HTTP request and HTTP response , in depth.
Native idea was to use some of large number add ins for Firefox and Internet Explorer. So, let's start this interesting journey, naming it one by one.

• Fiddler

Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language.

Fiddler is freeware and can debug traffic from virtually any application, including browsers like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera.

Fiddler can be downloaded from http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/version.asp
To compare this tools and browser add-ins I will send request from my app raised on button click that will contact Google docs and try to retieve all folders in Google docs account for logged user

Trace traffic in Fiddler, see details about request, in Result column you can see responce status code; you can see Protocol used, targeted Host, target URL and much more.


For some request, you can see details like request header and related informations in columns on right side Auth,Raw,Xml...



You can see response header and informations about response: response header content like content type,content lenght, or in some other columns you can see details about Auth,Cache,Privacy,Raw and xml.



You can see xml content of response and wanted details like "did I get response as I expected".


Fiddler is offcourse, much,much more, in my array of work I exploerd just a surface of this powerfull tool. You can set AutoResponder or you can use nice subtool Request Builder to create low level requests for some resouce... You can tune performances or you can read more on msdn.

• HTTP Debugger Pro

Let see one tool in action that is unfortinatelly expensive, but I love this tool UI. Offcourse, you can allways use 14-day trial version like I did. So,let's click on the button that contacts Google docs and enjou in muchness of details.

You can see nice UI with details that you want to inspect: like program that send request,method of request;get,post,..., domain, full targeted url, type od data:text,xml,json,....,etc.

Offcourse, you can see details about request


You can see details about response header


You can see details about Request stream


You can see details about Response stream


Http Debugger Pro has extremly user friendly interface, so if in your work you have intensive http debugging tasks, it gets all my recomendations.
See detailed tutorial here.

• Web Development Helper
  Web Development Helper is a free browser extension for Internet Explorer that provides a set of tools and utilities for the Web developer, esp. Ajax and ASP.NET developers. The tool provides features such as a DOM inspector, an HTTP tracing tool, and script diagnostics and immediate window.
  Web Development Helper works against IE6+, and requires the .NET Framework 2.0 or greater to be installed on the machine.
  The tool can be activated using the Tools -> Web Development Helper command. You can also customize your browser's toolbar to add a button for this command to facilitate frequest use. Clicking on the menu command or browser button brings up the tool's console window and set of commands.

Let's dive into this IE tool:

Start tool, select request that you want to inspect, you can see details and if you want more data,click on the right side on Show Details link button.

Request header details


Response header details


More details on Response content


So, if you are the "add-in type of developer" use this solution, it is a bit light weight, but it is free, and detailed as it should be.

• Tcp Trace
  

The simpliest lightweiht http debugging tool and tracing tool for http/tcp. This is a tool written by Shawn Ostermann at Ohio University, for analysis of TCP dump files. It can take as input the files produced by several popular packet-capture programs, including tcpdump, snoop, etherpeek, HP Net Metrix, and WinDump. tcptrace can produce several different types of output containing information on each connection seen, such as elapsed time, bytes and segments sent and recieved, retransmissions, round trip times, window advertisements, throughput, and more. It can also produce a number of graphs for further analysis.

Set destination port as 3639 if your app is running on http://localhost:3639/ControlWebSite/Default.aspx
You have also to set other data like destination server,2 ports etc

The HTTP module can be used to analyze web (HTTP 1.0 [8] and HTTP 1.1 [5]) traffic from dumpfiles. The module can be run by passing in the -xhttp[P] option to tcptrace , where P represents the HTTP port number. By default, the module looks for web traffic in the TCP well known port 80. If your dumpfile has web traffic in port number P (not 80), you may pass it in as P in the command line as shown above.
Let's dive in...
GET /main.asp HTTP/1.0
Response Code: 200 (OK)
Request Length: 438
Reply Length: 30730
Content Length: 30447
Content Type : text/html
Time request sent: Thu May 1 14:29:41.700691 2003 (1051813781.701)
Time reply started: Thu May 1 14:29:45.189720 2003 (1051813785.190)
Time reply ACKed: Thu May 1 14:29:46.394593 2003 (1051813786.395)
Elapsed time: 3489 ms (request to first byte sent)
Elapsed time: 4694 ms (request to content ACKed)

You have detailed User manual available.
Let us see the information reported as part of the GET /main.asp HTTP request.

These are the data exposed to you
Response Code field displays the HTTP response code indicating the type of HTTP response received from the server.

Request Length tracks the total length (in bytes) of this HTTP request.

Reply Length tracks the length of the HTTP response received from the server for this HTTP request.

Content Length field reports the length of the response found from the Content Length field part of the HTTP response. If the Content Length field is not found in the response, the Content Length is reported as the length of the remaining data (after the headers) in the server-to-client data file.

Content Type reports the content type of the data being sent in the response.

Time request sent, Time reply started, Time reply ACKed fields, as is obvious from their names, track the time the request was sent, the time when the first segment carrying the response was received, and when the response was ACKed by the client, respectively. Note that the times are printed in human readable text format along with their absolute values.

Elapsed time fields indicate the time elapsed between seeing the request and receiving the first byte of the response, and the time elapsed between seeing the request and having the response ACKed.

Interesting detail is that tcptrace is compiled and tested at Ohio University on Solaris and GNU/Linux machines. It is also known to work under [NetFreeOpen] BSD, MacOSX, AIX, HP-UX and IRIX.

• Tamper Data

This is first Firefox addin that I will present. It can be very usefull to view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers and post parameters, Trace and time http response/requests, Security test web applications by modifying POST parameters.

After you start your add-in in Firefox, Tools -> Tamper Data, set Start Tamper to intercept request , and dive into data by clicking on our old frend button - Get data from Google, the game can start on:

Key feature is that this addin enables tampering data on the fly, and by that I mean you can capture request before it is send to the server ,modify it and send it modified to the recepient.

Details that can be changed for the sending request


There is Request Header view


There is detailed Response header view


There is a nice list of settings for our friendly tool

• Firefox Web Developer Toolbar

This Firefox add in is not rich tool for http debugging, or better say not tool for this at all. But it is so options rich, so I want to mention it as a helper for various web development issues that may come.You can do some http introspection by clicking on Tools->Web Developer->Information -> View Response Header. This the Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

• IE HTTP Analyzer

This is a tool which can serve as HTTP monitor, HTTP sniffer and HTTP Tracer.
IEInspector HTTP Analyzer is such a handy tool that allows you to monitor, trace, debug and analyze HTTP/HTTPS traffic in real-time.
HTTP Analyzer includes two Editions: Stand-alone Edition and Add-on Edition. Stand-alone Edition : Window stand-alone EXE application. It allows you to capture and view HTTP/HTTPS traffic from a specific process or user/session/system wide. Support IE, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and other win32 web application.Add-on Edition: An add-on that integrates into the lower part of your IE or Firefox window and can be opened/closed from the IE or Firefox toolbar. It can only capture and view HTTP/HTTPS traffic of current IE or Firefox process.

Unfortinatelly, this powerfull tool is not free. Let's see is it money worth. Click on the legendary button and call Get all google documents.You can see that request and some others that our machine regulary sends.

You can use standalone tool or you can use Firefox addin, both are same by features.

Inspect your request

Inspect your response

There is a big list of usefull features in this tool, like Http Request Builder, JSON Viewer( HTTP Analyzer can deserialize SOAP and JSON traffic into the easy-to-use object tree) etc

• Http Watch

There is free basic version and there is one version that you have to pay. Features:Plug-in for Internet Explorer ,Standalone log file viewer, Shows HTTPS requests, Handles HTTP compression, Page Level Time Charts, Request Level Time Charts, Automatic Recording, Exports to XML and CSV, Displays basic HTTP information including URLs, status codes, response size, mime type & time, Displays detailed HTTP information including headers, cookies, streams, etc...
Certain functions in HttpWatch Basic Edition are restricted to the following set of well known domains - amazon.com, ebay.com, google.com, httpwatch.com, microsoft.com & slashdot.org

Start tool in firefox, Tools-> HttpWatch, press Record, an let the music play...

Call Google and see response

See details

More details you can see by saving this .hwl log file, and after that you can open it in your desktop application Http Watch Studio. There is a large number typical details for http request and response like cache,content,stream data etc

More details about response


To summarize this post, this is list of tools, standalone applications, Firebug extensions and IE extensions that can be usefull in Http debugging process. Some of them you have to pay, some of them are free. But all are usefull in work or at least, they could be...