My company requires that we achieve our estimates to within 30% of forecast. Typically, clients (any my business is no different) expect that they'll get their product as soon as possible for the lowest cost ("I want all the features delivered yesterday for free"). As part of my team's development iterations, we are required to estimate...
I might have to write an application for this, but I thought I'd ask here first, maybe someone else already wrote it. I am looking for a small, preferably web application with the following features: everyone logs on, so the app can know who does what everyone can add tasks and assign them to someone (including themselves) you can mar...
I have multiple projects on my own, each one with a deadline and a (personal) estimate of the time that I should invest to get the thing done. At a particular time I can be involved in multiple projects. What I need is a software that lets me plan and display a "timeline": a line for each project that extends when I've to push efforts ...
As a programmer, I feel burnt out if the management give me spec after spec, day after day. I think I can code 6 hours a day very focused, but non-stop coding does burn me out a little, especially it is 1 year or 18 months non-stop. A mere 1 week or 2 week vacation per year isn't going to help much. Sometimes I want to take some time ...
I recently came across the Pomodoro Technique as a way to increase productivity, get in the zone, and in general feel a sense of accomplishment at setting some short programming goals and achieving them. So far I have enjoyed it and the sense of accomplishment I get after seeing a bunch of short goals add up at the end of the day to a l...
Possible Duplicate: How Many Hours per Week on Average do you put in for your Workplace? Can everybody concentrate on doing the good development 8 hours / day ? As I found it is really difficult if you don't do something to relax yourself, and do you even still do some extra reading after 8 hours day time work ? Thanks for sha...
I have been a consultant for many years now and find myself crossing the barriers of being at client A while working on client B...then taking part in a meeting over the phone for client C, etc. I was curious what methods other people in my shoes used to track the time across many clients, projects, and tasks. Preferably something that...
I have a laptop and bunch of 5 min segments throughout my day. I used to think this was simply too short a time to do 'anything'. Though with a little practice and a few minor behavioral changes (like unplugging) I have realized that I can get something done in each segment. So now I am reaching out to all you quick-draw-programmers out ...
It happens fairly frequently that I'll finish up a big project or get done with a meeting around 30-45 minutes before my time to go home. There are usually things that need to be done, but it usually isn't worth it to start on those projects with only 30-45 minutes to go. What are some good things to spend that time doing? ...
Like many here, I am a one-man development team. I'm responsible for everything from gathering project requirements, designing concept-screens, planning and developing databases, and writing all code. Being a one-man team is nice, but has its negatives. I don't have the ability to quickly consult with other developers, I rarely get a se...
One of the challenges of being on a small team (sometimes even large organizations) is needing to switch contexts very often. I could be writing PHP code right now, followed by some completely unrelated C++ an hour from now, followed by HTML/JS immediately after that and repeat the process again all on the same day. Being able to contex...
You work on an important project that contains 7 independent modules, and you do not have enough time to finish the project in time. In front of you is a choice: to complete 3 modules in full or to start work on all the 7 modules in parallel, but not complete any of them within the planned period. Which strategy you choose? ...
Say I just found a bug involving javascript workflow in a web app. Most of the time I will fix the bug and reload the page. Unfortunately this is a time consuming process reloading the page all the time. Does anybody else save time by reloading updated Javascript / CSS without reloading the page. Are there any tools to help make this...
Does any web bug/ticket system (Jira, Google Code, github, etc) offer a native plugin to add new tickets and update existing ones? My current tickets are usually few lines long, and the overhead of using the GUI to enter them is high. Especially when I compare them to native task management software (e.g. Things), which usually offer s...
I work in a web shop where most of us aren't programmers. (I am.) Structure is almost non-existent. The biggest beauracratic construct is logging our time since that is essential for business. A few of us are project managers but everyone has their own system. Now lately customers want estimates for all of our work and reconciling t...
Possible Duplicate: How do you sustain motivation when working on personal projects? Working 8 hours a day on programming stuff I find that by the time I get home, or even on my days off, I don't really have the drive to do any more programming on personal projects, be it for research/experimentation, or even legitimate things I...
We have a pool of technical resources consisting of some front end developers, back end developers, graphic designers. Those resources are separated from clients directly by one or two account people per client. Requests from clients come in through the account people and get sent to our synchronization manager. The synchronization ...
Is it possible to be a great programmer without being great at estimating time for a given task? Can you be great at one and not great at the other and still be 'successful'? ...
Sometimes I have seen some code or part of the project which I could improve but is not related with my current team project. Those times I have a conflict because despite wanting to help, many teams lack enough people and doing extra work seems like betrayal. Obviously any managers will appreciate much more if you focus your effort on...
PMS = (Project Management Software) I used trac for software development some time ago. Right now I'm searching for a new more powerful (scheduling, gantt charts, ...) free solution (as in free beer ;-) and free to install on my server) for my current software project. Besides the current software project, abstract project management fe...