Software management for 2 programmers

Question

me and my very good friend do a small bussiness. We have company and we develop web apps using Scala. We have started 3 months ago and we have a lot of work now. We cannot afford to employ another programmer because we can't pay him now.

Until now we try to manage entire developing process very simply. We use excel sheets for simple bug tracking and we work on client requests on the fly. We have no plan for next week or something similar. But now I find it very inefficient and useless.

I am trying to find some rules or some methodology for small team or for only two guys. For example Scrum is, imo, unadapted for us. There are a lot of roles (ScrumMaster, Product Owner, Team...) and it seems overkill.

Can you something advise me? Have you any experiences with software management in small teams? Is any methodology of current agile development fitten for pair of programmers? Is there any software management for simple bug tracking, maybe wiki or time management for two coders?

thanks a lot for sharing.

Answer 1

You may say that Scrum is not really for you, but you may be surprised about how well it would fit your situation. There are many roles in the "official" implementation of the Scrum methodology, but in your situation, you may not need to worry about that yet.

Scrum can start with (or in your case, continue using) excel sheets (sticky notes) to keep a product backlog which is just a prioritized list of the tasks you need to complete for the project in question. You can stop at this point if you like (or if you feel like you want to take things slow) and simply have a great way to keep things from falling off your plate, always keeping the list prioritized and taking items from the top of the list.

If you take it a step further, you can define short sprints (2 weeks?) that will be made up of a few tasks that are taken from the top of the product backlog to work on over the two week period. This will give you an idea of what you can take on in the short term. Try this for a month and see if it a)helps you create better software and b)works for you. If so, see if you want to include more parts of the Scrum process. Don't be afraid to tailor this process to be what you need. If Scrum is really not for you, XP or Agile might be better.

As for defect management, @Justin Morgan mentioned Fogbugz, which is good. There is also Bugzilla (free) as another option.

Answer 2

Buy some 3x5 cards, sticky notes, and a whiteboard or a corkboard. Check out XP and/or Lean/Kanban. You can do either with two people (one if you don't pair program). Avoid spending money on fancy software when you can make the process visible on a wall.

Answer 3

Fogbugz is free up to 2 users: Anyone soloing using fogbugz?

Answer 4

Trac is popular open source bug tracking, project management AND wiki.

As for adopting agile methodologies, i'd say read on Scrum, and try to understand that it's main idea is "process over methodologies". In other words the important thing is to build a fluid process. Following methodologies should not be taken as a dogma. Chose what works for you, and drop what does not fit. Use simple tools. Trac should cover all your needs.

Answer 5

I recommend Redmine. It is built in Ruby on Rails and has Issue tracking, time management, wiki and the ability to talk to multiple version control systems (such as Git or Subversion). A complete list of features is available here.

Answer 6

Basecamp from 37signals has some free todo list management (1 project, <5users free I believe), very simple interface.

Although for just two users I'd recommend email and our new desktop app, Yoxel Personal, that allows to manage email conversations (GMail thread style) and track requests&tasks associated with them: http://yoxel.com/personal-commitment-manager.html (We also host free bug-tracker and FAQ system)

Answer 7

In our company, we use Teambox, a Ruby on Rails Project management software wich works perfectly for the most features you need.

Answer 8

You don't need a complex project management software since there are only 2 developers in your team. Whiteboard, markers, sticky notes will do the job perfectly.

What you do need is a version control system (SVN or git or Mercurial, or something else). But you should have it already, since your project is over three months old.

Answer 9

See the Kicking Ass & Taking Names talk by Trey Smith.

Among other things, he talks about his method for development management for a iPhone programming team of two: him, and a full-time dev who lives overseas.