• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

process control

 
Greenhorn
Posts: 20
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
hi,

In our company(small) we would like to control the development "process".

we were having only 2 projects before and now we are having more than 10 at hand, and many new hires are going to be in another 4 months.

We write requirement documents based on "Mastering requirement process" book. we do a little design, using UML tool. so that is it..

What are the things your company does to control the process.

is there any kind of training available for this? we do it by only "book" knowledge and we are not sure if we are doing it correct.

thanks,
 
author
Posts: 14112
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
First, you probably shouldn't *control* *the* process. The reason is simple: every project needs its own process, and will probably even need to change its process over time, adjusting it to the current situation.

So, what you want to do is *train* your teams, helping them to choose their process, to gather the right metrics to see how they are doing and to decide how adapt the process to improve. Early and often feedback and reflection is *vital* for this.

Personally, I like XP as a starting point. It provides rather concrete practices to start with, and tons of feedback.

Whatever process you start with, it's quite easy for beginners to misinterprete the book knowledge, though - to miss the main points and concentrate on unimportant things. Having someone experienced on the team will significantly increase your chance of success. If you have the resources, definitely hire an experienced coach, at least to get you started. Preferably, try to find someone who isn't fixed on a specific process, so he is more likely to actually concentrate on helping you instead of selling his process. Be especially cautious if he wants to sell you some tools!
 
marys joseph
Greenhorn
Posts: 20
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Thanks for your reply.

I did not clearly explain what I wanted to know, but gave me the answer. :-)

we are not in position to hire someone right now, can you point me to some training classes ?

thanks a lot for your help,
 
Greenhorn
Posts: 27
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
if you are starting to look out a process that fits your organization [with limited knowledge about process], i suggest you might want to look at spiral process development[plan driven][on which most of the process are based on] and agile development [non-plan driven]- combining both is good way of achieving displine and flexibility in software development. they will give you a good insight into the kind of process that might best fit your organization goals.

thanks
Dinaker
 
Ilja Preuss
author
Posts: 14112
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by marys joseph:
we are not in position to hire someone right now, can you point me to some training classes ?



Depends on where you are in the world...

For the US/UK, Object Mentor, ThoughtWorks and Industrial Logic are quite well known in the Agile-/XP community.

You might also want to take a look at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?XpTrainingClasses and ask for references at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/
 
author
Posts: 608
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Looks like you're dealing with cross-system issues, you've got 10 projects in the hopper. It's likely overkill for you but the Enterprise Unified Process (www.enterpriseunifiedprocess.com) addresses cross-system issues.

Knowing about the issues, such as portfolio management and enterprise architecture, is the first step in dealing with them.

- Scott
 
(instanceof Sidekick)
Posts: 8791
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
The most interesting processes imposed on my project have nothing to do with how we do things inside the project, but how we interact with other groups. Frinstance the people who: order servers, install them, provide 1st level prod support, deploy database changes, deploy WARs and EARs and so on. It's helpful to have a good roadmap of who you need to talk to at various stages of the project and what deliverables they'll be providing or expecting. You have to be careful building the roadmap because people will come out of the woodwork trying to impose reviews and gates before a project can go live.
 
author
Posts: 11962
5
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Stan James:
The most interesting processes imposed on my project have nothing to do with how we do things inside the project, but how we interact with other groups. Frinstance the people who: order servers, install them, provide 1st level prod support, deploy database changes, deploy WARs and EARs and so on. It's helpful to have a good roadmap of who you need to talk to at various stages of the project and what deliverables they'll be providing or expecting. You have to be careful building the roadmap because people will come out of the woodwork trying to impose reviews and gates before a project can go live.


I know exactly what you're talking about. Sigh.
 
Stan James
(instanceof Sidekick)
Posts: 8791
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I was trying to sit on both sides of the fence there ... The roadmap is a good thing because it can be very bad to forget one of those partners on the way. Early in the web days, one business group contracted an outside company (thousands of dollars a day, two guys in a garage) to build a web site. When it was all done and paid for they took it to the enterprise to install. They said, that doesn't meet our standards, you can't put it on our servers. Oops.

The roadmap can be bad because some people don't want to help you so much as to put together a very impressive process document and look busy.

If you get the chance to design a roadmap, get everybody together early and agree on some deliverables that everyone can use. It's a major pain to present the same information to every group, copied into their required templates over and over. I wound up putting all of our doc on a Wiki and putting links in all the questionnaires. Heh heh.
 
Greenhorn
Posts: 3
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
>we are not in position to hire someone right now, can you point me to some training classes?

Joseph, try this related training course list at InferData
http://www.inferdata.com/training/processandmethods.html
 
There were millions of the little blood suckers. But thanks to this tiny ad, I wasn't bitten once.
a bit of art, as a gift, the permaculture playing cards
https://gardener-gift.com
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic