I have noticed that when writing specs you waste a lot of time on things, that later, when you write your app are negligible, and you forget some important stuff. I have found it to be faster (for me) to write a proof-of-concept application (no good error handlers and security stuff, minor gliches in the style etc) and use that as a spe...
I find myself sometimes writing documents which usually consider 2 parts of a project's plan: Requirements Analysis By analysis, I mean the different possible ways that we could meet our requirements. My analysis usual includes mock-ups of UI or DB schemas or anything related. It also compares the pros and cons of 3 or 4 different ...
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/...
In my very short time working in the programming field, I've seen two extremes: Projects where little to no planning was done and thus become maintenence nightmares. Projects that are perpetually in the planning stages and don't move from there. It seems like the latter oftentimes happen as a reaction to the former. Where is the hap...
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've just had a new project land on my desk which is more than a little bit beyond me, so I'll be delegating it to a colleague. However, I don't want to be the nightmare user with the forever changing specs; so what is my best way to plan and spec out the application that needs to be developed? Are there template spec documents out ther...
Looking for a light weight ER Diagram tool. We are only looking to visualize our tables and their relationships, however none of them have primary key constraints defined. We use certain index/NOT NULL fields as primary keys (eg: claim_num). We simply need a tool that let's you draw the diagram itself, nothing more nor less. Also, for so...
Some background first, but my question is of a general nature, really. A prospect client has contacted me about a new website for their business. What they need is a fairly complex job-board type of project with user accounts for employers and candidates, some advertising, forums, CMS features (for articles), CC/PayPal payments (subscri...
I was involved in a discussion at work about which software systems various people had built were the biggest; biggest in this case being a combination of system complexity and implementation difficulty. Since experienced programmers tend to get a gut feel for a project's size, even if they wouldn't put it in writing, I thought I'd pose...
Hi, We are a two people team of software developers and have just started working on a new project. We have a myriad of very small non-critical tasks and some bigger tasks which are usually time-critical to manage. I am looking for a tool that would allow us to Add, keep track of and prioritize tasks Manage dependencies between tasks ...
At work, one of the head managers asked me to research on what could be the benefits of changing the current source control server (Visual Source Safe) of my project to SVN. I really don't have anything against SVN, actually I kind of dig it, but in my humble opinion, change to SVN will not bring any significant benefits to the project...
I am creating a front-end for a data collection web application. Operators using the data collection application will log data for a dozen different projects, with each project requiring different fields. There are some common fields (like name, address... etc) but then each project also has custom fields for extra data that needs to be ...
I need to create an interface for building photo galleries. I've got a good idea of how I want the UI to work, and I'm looking for input regarding existing scripts I could use, jquery plugins, general advice, etc.. The UI will consist of a narrow column on the left that will contain small thumbnails of all the users images. The rest of ...
I'm a new software architect/lead, coming up with software design for a team of software developers. I'm coming up with the requirement spec, interface header files, and visio software design docs, and build plan, etc. My question is: what do the rest of the team do during this period? I'm certainly engaging them in the design, but we d...
I'm looking for quick and simple alternatives to Microsoft Project. I need to articulate what a small team of developers and testers are doing over the coming months, describe the order that they're doing those things, and work out whether the amount of stuff we need to do is likely to fit in to the timescales we've been given. I know...
As a new developer who is the only software guy on staff I have faced a few challenges but possibly the most difficult has been time estimates. I strugle every time I have to give a project estimate. My question then is; If I do not have any experience and I don't have a fellow dev in my environment, how do I provide a solid estimate? ...
Hello, I know this is probably the nth project management question. But am trying to move my team onto a more robust project management technique. Am wondering what is the best technique to use? I know that probably no technique is best, but which are the most popular techniques? Poker planning? Evidence Based Scheduling? COCOMO? Agile?...
I'm working now on an API for developers feature of our product. The first version was released and it has small number of users at the moment. Since I started to develop its second version, some parts were reworked, some parts were removed to make the API more elegant and clear. But the 2nd version deployment can be a pain for old ver...
Hello, What are the points I must remember during the planning phase of the project to have a really firm foundation? Thanks Edit: I mean more specifically related to coding. (I don't mean the budgets etc etc). For example: Where can we use generics,reflection or concepts in C# ...
Hey guys, does anyone know of a Visual Studio (2008) Plug-in that attempts to track how long you've spent working on any given Solution or Project? I realize this would be difficult, like at work I might leave a Solution open all day, but only work on it for a couple of hours, on and off. However at home, I might only open a Solution...