Serious help on maintaining an ongoing project

Question

Hello,

A whole team of programmers who were managing a project in our company have left the company to start their own venture.

Now,How do I carry on? itseems quite hopeless.

Please advice... Thanks

Answer 1

Is the new company hiring?

Answer 2

Did they write any documentation? If so you might still have a chance. I think it all depends on the quality of the code they left behind. If it's really high quality code you will probably have no problem finding people to continue the work.

If the code is crap... well... good luck. :)

Answer 3

The first step is to gather all the information currently available on their project and make sure it is properly secured--source control, documentation, etc.

If you find that information is missing, I recommend you reach out to the developers who left. Most professional developers have an interest in maintaining the code they've left behind and ones who've left to form their own firm may well have a vested interest in staying on good terms with your company.

Once you have a grasp of the state of the project(s) your previous developers were working on, bring it to management and ask for the necessary resources (new developers, etc.) They know the project took a number of people to support in the past. That number doesn't go down because the people left. In fact, it almost invariably goes up.

Answer 4

The first thing that comes to mind is - Did they provide any sort of transition info (documentation, meetings with those who would be taking over, etc?) As a contractor, the code I write will become the responsibility of someone else. At the end of a project there is usually a hand-off period where the client looks over the code and can ask questions.

Although in your case is an internal project from former employers, it seems a similar process would have been followed. If that's not the case, is there any way you can still send the former employees questions? They certainly won't be as responsive as if they were still in your office, but they might be willing to help the process along...

Answer 5

I hate to bring the legal aspect up, but if they left to start a new company that is a competitor to yours then you should seek legal advice.

Answer 6

Not knowing the specifics of your situation it is difficult to go beyond some generalities at the moment.

Questions you'll need to be able to answer:

Is the source code under source control?

Do you even have source code?

What is the state of the current release of the software?

Is there any documentation?

What is it supposed to do? Do you have a clear idea of the big picture?

Where are you in the build/release cycle?

Who else do you have in-house who can help assess the situation?

Are you contractually obligated to deliver something soon? What sort of rapport do you have with your customer(s)? Are they aware of the situation?

When whole teams jump ship it can be the death of a project if there is significant domain expertise and knowledge required or if the in-house developers don't have the skill set needed to hit the ground running to pick up where the old team left off.

Another question is "Can you get any time of the former developers on consultant basis to help get the new team up to speed?" That one might be your one shot at saving the project. I'd pursue that angle if you can.

Good luck!

Answer 7

We tend to use attrition as an opportunity to bring in better talent. Not that it isn't a set-back, but its a great chance to make your company stronger. Be sure to figure out why the group left, so you can resolve the problem for your new hires.

Answer 8

My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

Answer 9

You need to grab as much documentation you can find on the project. Then I would try to divide up the modules of the project between other developers you have in the company and have them all ramp up ASAP and then report back so everyone can get a good understanding of the product.

Best of luck.

Answer 10

Like others mentioned, apart from hoping that

• there is documentation
• code is in source control
• you have opportunity to hire new people etc..

I would take this as a fresh opportunity and take this up as a challenge, learn from past mistakes and move on. Most likely you will succeed if you are positive.

Else, an alternative is to check to see if you can consider any position in their new company, if they liked you, they might hire you in the same or different role, or they may not.

I would go with the first option.

Answer 11

It is also possible that one or more of them will be willing to come in for a fee and talk your new developers through what they need to know (depending on how professionally they left the company (which indicates if you actually want their help) and how well you treated them when they announced thier resignations (which is an indicator as to whether they might be willing at any amount of money to come back). Expect to pay 3 or 4 times their previous hourly wage to do this though.

If they left without notice in some countries you might have recourse. Check with the company lawyer. If you terminated them when they tried to give notice, you deserve whatever you get by not having a chance to pick their brains before they left.

If the project is not yet in production, and depending on the current deadlines, it might be easier to start fresh than try to figure out their junk. If they left just before a deadline with no notice and no documentation of what they were doing, then you prodbably don't want to use their code if you can help it as they were clearly mad at the company and probably at you and they may have left timebombs or they left because they knew the project would fail.

If you have other developers inteh company, at least insist to management that you get some of them assigned rather than hiring all new people. It helps to have someone who knows how your sytem and database and source control etc is set up.

And let this be a lesson to you for treating your next set of employees. I fthey left things in such a state that no one can figure out where to start, you probaly either made a mistake in how you treat your employees or in how you hire them if not both. Really reflect on what could have casued this to go wrong and try not to make the same mistakes again.