Workflow for multiple small projects with several developers & designers

Question

Hello,

Recently I started working at a web design firm, with 6 designers, 4 project managers, and 4 developers. Currently, they are using a staging environment and a live environment. No source control, no testing. Changes are made by either the designers or the developers to the staging environment, tested by the project managers and brought to production.

This is not ideal: sometimes code gets overwritten, lost, and there is no overview of who did what.

In what way can we imorove this workflow? We would really like to add subversion, but that would require a lot of changes (the designers are used to simple solutions)...

Thanks!

Answer 1

You cannot do this unless all the stakeholders agree. Otherwise you'll fighting them all the way. You need produce a plan you think will work with solid reasons (which you have). Arrange a meeting and get everyone to criticize your plan with their reasons. Then work with them to get a workable solution. You may actually find they have the same concerns but don't know about things like version control etc.

As Kane says in the comment above, technology won't solve this but will help once everyone agrees to use it. Don't pick a technological solution yet. Pick the things you need in the abstract and explain to them why they should use things like this. Try to keep your biases out in the first instance. Let them have joint ownership of any solutions.

Also as Greg says, make any future technological solution the easiest way. Honestly this is sooooo important. Don't make it it hard.

Answer 2

I would suggest that you can't avoid using some kind of source control. Subversion with TortoiseSVN works really well on Windows, and is suitable for non-programmers who may have had no prior experience with source control.

Implement Subversion, train the designers on how to use it, and most importantly: remove other methods of getting around it. Make Subversion the easiest way to get their work done, and they will use it.