Looking to build a proposal to revamp a software environment (tools, infrastructure, virtualization, SDLC, ...) and was looking for suggestions on places to start.
Mostly looking for approaches to version code, automate builds, promote to test, build virtual test environments, assign units of work, tools to be used etc.
I'm in the brainstorming phase, so no ideas are bad.
How about "approaches to version code, automate builds, promote to test, build virtual test environments, assign units of work, tools to be used etc". Seriously, it sounds like you're asking the right questions, but for any one of these things asking people to be prescriptive when they don't know anything about the environment doesn't make much sense.
If you're version control is "good enough" (in that it does pretty much what it's supposed to so and is not a bottleneck) then it's probably not the best target for revamping, even if it's not the coolest or newest thing. If it's totally broken then putting something in place is urgent. Build automation - we use cruisecontrolf for some things, but if you have nothing, basic build scripts might be the logical next step.
How big is the organization? What you need for 20 people( or 200) is radically different from what you need for 2 or 3 developers.
There's no magic answer, it all depends on the current needs.
I would start on SO best-practices Tag, by highest votes. There is a ton of stuff there.
I agree, this is too broad.
Probably you should try reading this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development and keep digging in the topics that look more interesting to you.
Eventually very specific questions will come.