Hi All, I would like to know how many of you (Project managers & Tech leads) use the WBS (work breakdown structure) for project planning? I hear it's a good thing to do, but then there are many "good things" to do, which don't work out in the end. Does this really help in project planning? If so, whats the right way to do it. probably ...
I am a person who is very interested in personal development. Therefore, I would like to maintain a project database or diary, where I can list the special occurrences and experiences in the different projects. Do you know any software which is dedicated to this task? (of course I can write it into a word file, but perhaps there are sma...
Probably not the best wording for that question but... I understand there are things like MS Project to manage tasks within a project, however I'm looking for something one level higher. I need to be able to manage projects and available resources themselves, rather than just tasks within a project. For instance ProjectA 1/1/2009-1/...
I have a personal project I've been working on in my spare time. It's far from complete, but I want feedback on the UI and the functionality that has made it in so far. Where is a good location to get useful feedback without being persecuted for the post being unrelated to the site's purpose? The project is a website. I'm not posting a...
Do you find that corporate buzzwords or heavy management jargon gets in the way of software project communication? for example using words such as Mainstreaming Holistic Contestability Synergies etc. Would you rather see a initiative within the industry to put a stop to jargon such as this to help people communicate better and keep p...
It could be as simple as one-liner scripts, or as complex as a complete programming language with parser and debugger. But there's the well-known danger of creating a labor-saving tool, that takes more labor to create than the original task (unless you can it amortize it over several projects). I'm concerned about getting carried away ...
My team works mostly w/ Flex-based applications. That being said, there are nearly no conventions at all (even getting them to refactor is a miracle in itself) and the like. Coming from a .NET + CruiseControl.NET background, I've been aching to getting everyone to use some decent tracking software (we're using a todo list coded in PHP n...
hi guys, im wanting to write a paper on the most common problems encountered during freelance web development. i thought i'd consult with you chaps since it never ceases to blow my mind how good the suggestions/input is that comes from the people on this forum. let me start by listing the things i have encountered over the years (nb. i...
We are looking for ways to further improve our software development process through proper documentation. However, being a document, these documentation/specification are only available whenever we open and read it. For example, URS, SRS, ERD, DB Diagram, Class Diagram, Use Case, Test Scripts, User Manual and Training materials usually...
I've been thinking about the story of the Three Systems of Man from the book The UNIX Philosophy. For those of you who aren't familiar, it goes something like this: The First System of Man is the one he builds when his back is against the wall. It's klugey, hackish, and doesn't it lend itself to new features. The Second System is des...
Assume that you leads team of 4 developers. How often would you estimate the risk of the project? What do you think about the daily estimation? Do you think that the daily updates of the potencial problems (based on the morning stand-up meetings with the team) released as a short summary e-mail is good idea? Maybe you would consider an a...
How do you determine what features are enough for launching? Should we launch with the "bare functionality" without goodies? Or should we add "bells and whistles"? How do you decide? Is it true we can "get burnt" of suddden exposure, or is sudden exposure rather a myth, and exposure is slow and gradual. Your suggestions are welcome. ...
I am a reasonably experienced C# developer (about 5 year experience) that has recently been put in charge of my first development team as technical lead (varying between 3-5 other developers). Over the last 4 months in this role, one dilemma that keeps arising is trying to find the right degree of sharing awareness of the communication t...
I am currently working on a simple system to replace an Excel spreadsheet. It's just a log for activities on a boat. The people working on the boat are of course happy with the Excel spreadsheet and don't see a reason for change. However, those on land have problems when they need to accumulate data. Basically they have 1 report each day...
We are using Trac as the main project management / bug tracking tool in our job. The pros in Trac: Free software (free as in free beer and free speech). SVN integration. Easy to use, user-friendly, etc. Different permissions. We started using it for our software projects, one instance of Trac per project. Here's where I found the fir...
It seems like it is nearly impossible to get close because you could run into any number of issues and things not first anticipated. How close can we be expected to reasonably estimate? Our PM wants to be able to have things like Gant charts and such mapping out weeks at a time and such... So we say we can get these bugs done, and this i...
Hi, I keep hearing and reading a lot about Agile and Scrum development methodologies, but I have no idea of what they can be, or their use, what kind of projects are suited to this method ? Could you point me out to some useful information about it ? Where to start ? What are the advantages ? ...
Is it recommended? What you you all think about this? Or anyonw have better approach for managing different phases of project with source code control / database control care to share their views? ...
Would some be able to help me with some links on how FPA is done for SAS related projects.If someone of yuo have already done I guess it would be even more usefull if yuo could share some tips on how it could be done ...
I want to avoid the situations when my developers do not share the common knowledge (solutions for the problems they encountered, cool tips, common mistakes, shortcuts for achieving particular goal, configuration issues, partial requirements, etc.) with each others. I'm taking about the situation when such lack of communication is accide...