Project managers who work in software development projects could be those who know about the software development process, probably because they were developers in the past, or those who do not have or do not want to have any technical knowledge and decide to delegate it to a third person -also know as Technical Director, Technical Lead, Team Lead, and other nice names for the man who really manage the software development process.
However this is an article for those who put their hands on projects, probably not coding but are PMs really involved in the software development process. I will explain how to set a project information system based on Open Unified Process and open source software.
The idea is simple, set a information repository accessible by anyone in the project, since the beginning of the development cycle to avoid miscommunication errors. The strategy, use a formal set of templates to document the business needs and the software design and publish them in a project site, but allowing the full access to the development team.
Before begin: you are the PM, if you do not want to go into the details ask IT team to handle the process, it is not so complicated but it takes time. It is not that easy
- Share the information since the beginning
- Define what to share and how to share
Software projects have this quality, share the information is good, all the information related to the software design and software implementation is good. There is no restriction, developers will understand better their work and BTW you will be reducing drastically the “developer” dependency -does this line sounds familiar to you? “I didn’t do it, I do not understand the code so it will take a time to do/fix/solve it“The easiest way to share documents is to have an open system that allows you to publish information in a public site -public means only to those person you want to have access. There are many ways to do -share a folder through the network 
, share a folder through versions management system 
, or to have groupware like Microsoft SharePoint. My case is to publish them since the beginning by setting a Wiki software that will have an ACL, a version management incorporated and all directly online -my team members do not have to install anything else than any web browser.Do not trust the model? Check the proved model by browsing Wikipedia. There is no bigger documentation team in the whole world.
I will recommend for this experiment DokuWiki. It could be not the best, but is good enough. If you don’t like it there are hundreds so you can pick one. However I will recommend those with WYSIWYG editors to avoid the need of WikiSyntax.
At this point you know how to share whatever you will share. But, what is supposed to be shared? Many organizations already have their own set of standard documents, most of them because where certified in something. Like the ISO certifications. So, use them, do not worry, during the project evolution you will see how the documents grow and mature supplying with the appropriated information.Do not have template document? I see, you are on a small company or in a non-small-messy one. Don’t worry there are tons of templates available for free. ReadySET and Method123 will give you a hand but hey, you have to do your homework and build your own ones to fit your process and specific needs.
Know you are ready to start sharing your documentation. Give your team the freedom to work with the documents but track their changes, software design is not a democracy -brainstorming is a democracy where votes do not count. Software design is a Dictatorship where those who has the experience and knowledge will prevail.