Tagged Questions

8
votes
5answers
568 views

What to do as a Dev when for years their team has lacked product innovation, not used project mgmt methodologies, and kept bad Software Dev practices? [duplicate]

Note: To those who have marked this question as duplicate: The answers on that post do not address my question, unlike the ones on this post that do address my question directly. Also, that question ...
92
votes
15answers
6k views

How should I behave as a developer in a project that's headed for failure?

I am a developer in a 5-member team and I believe our project is headed for disaster. I'll describe why in the bottom, but my question is how should I behave? The deadline is in 1.5 months and I feel ...
6
votes
3answers
450 views

Code ownership: What should I do when a dev leaves or team splits?

There are multiple ways of tracking code ownership (i.e., collective, team or individual). In case of team or individual ownership, how do you: track ownership? deal with situations when dev leaves ...
49
votes
7answers
3k views

Programming with a group of people I've never met

I've been assigned a group project from my AP computer science class, and I am required to work with three other people. I've never talked to them before, I have no idea their skill level, and all I ...
10
votes
7answers
638 views

Rule of thumb for cost vs. savings for code re-use [duplicate]

Is it a good rule of thumb to always write code for the intent of re-using it somewhere down the road? Or, depending on the size of the component you are writing, is it better practice to design it ...
5
votes
2answers
315 views

Calculation of Milestones/Task list

My project manager assigned me a task to estimate the development time for an iPad application. Lets assume that I gave estimation of 15 working days. He thought that the number of days where too many ...
3
votes
5answers
275 views

Team member missing? Glue between data producers and data consumers

We're in the business of automated trading and our team consists of two bigger groups, I call them data producers and data consumers. The producers' primary task is to maintain a chain of smaller ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views

Is it common to separate back-end and front-end into two positions on web development projects?

At a web startup, is it more common to have an engineer working the front-end AND back-end of the feature (basically in charge of the whole feature)? Or have engineers separated between the back-end ...
10
votes
5answers
4k views

In Scrum, why shouldn't the Product Owner and ScrumMaster roles be combined?

In the more traditional projects that I've worked on, the project manager (and, on larger projects, there might be associate/deputy/assistant project managers should one person be unavailable) is the ...
10
votes
6answers
608 views

Is a Scrum Master needed on a high performing team?

My understanding of the duties of the scrum master are as follows: Enforce the process Remove impediments (that the developers cannot remove themselves) Prevent interruption from outside Facilitate ...
14
votes
5answers
460 views

Are my team's processes out of control?

I'm a software dev team leader (I recently took control of a new team), and ultimately responsible for maintaining high productivity, good quality and organized priorities. I have 6 senior developers ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views

What's a good internal wiki / team dashboard system for a software project? [closed]

my team and I have been struggling since day 1 with keeping information all in one place and formatting it in such a way that it would be accessible to every developer and the important parts were ...
17
votes
10answers
812 views

Inspiring a co-worker to adopt better coding practices?

In the Handling my antiquated coworker question, various people discussed strategies for dealing with coworkers who are unwilling to integrate their workflow with the team's. I'd like, if possible, ...
14
votes
6answers
896 views

Should a developer be allowed to use VSS if he prefers it?

I introduced Mercurial to my department. I love it, but it is my first version control experience. I am using it with NetBeans PHP for web development. Another developer who works on internal company ...
4
votes
6answers
497 views

What are the different methods of dividing and organizing work among project team members?

In my team, everyone would like to do everything, including backend, frontend, middle layer. I told them that we should divide the work according to roles and area of expertise. What are the pros and ...
7
votes
11answers
948 views

Best practices for working with multiple programmers

I think most programmers prefer to work solo on projects, even when it's not feasible. I prefer to work alone, even outside of programming projects. When working with other developers, I typically ...
11
votes
6answers
1k views

How does SCRUM manage an enviroment where team members are shared?

Well, the questions said itself. In my workplace those cases happen, but also, many Agile books promote working in the same workplace and being concentrated in the current project to become faster in ...
-1
votes
3answers
254 views

How (and where) to organize a team to make a website? [closed]

Please take this question seriously. I have some moneys and ideas and I would like to hire developers/graphics to write down my ideas into a website. I could do it all myself, I have the right ...
3
votes
3answers
467 views

In a multidisciplinary team, how much should each member's skills overlap?

I've been working in embedded software development for this small startup and our team is pretty small: about 3-4 people. We're responsible for all engineering which involves an RF device controlled ...
22
votes
18answers
2k views

Is rotating the lead developer a good or bad idea?

I work on a team that has been flat organizationally since it's creation several months ago. My manager is non-technical and this means that our whole team is responsible for decision-making. My ...
7
votes
7answers
346 views

Who should determine team size?

Developers, managers, or customers? I was recently involved in a situation where I felt like the customers were arbitrarily demanding for more developers on a team which already had too many ...
6
votes
4answers
563 views

Team Organization for Small Team

Few friends (3) and I started a small company. But we weren't shure how to organize ourselves since everyone will work from their homes and in different hours of the day. How should we organize in ...
4
votes
1answer
96 views

Advice On How To Securely Manage [Client] Server Details Across Team?

Does anybody have any advice on this? I currently work as a kind of lead developer/team leader and we have some remote team members and sometimes a contractor or two. At times, the entire team might ...
1
vote
2answers
105 views

Does your team develop their supporting tools or this should be outsourced out of it?

By supporting tools, I mean: reference data manager, like virus definition for anti-virus software test data generator level builders for games simulators or advanced mocking systems Does the ...
23
votes
6answers
1k views

What actions to take when people leave the team?

Recently one of our key engineers resigned. This engineer has co-authored a major component of our application. We are not hitting Truck number yet though, but we're getting close :) Before the guy ...
5
votes
3answers
295 views

What must be done to allow a development team to minimize difficulties as new team members are added?

I work at a small Web Dev firm, and have been handling all the PHP/MySQL/etc. for a while. I'm looking at improving our practices to allow for easier collaboration as we grow. Some things I have in ...
20
votes
2answers
242 views

At what stage of an Open Source project should you invite contributions from the community?

I've been wondering about getting contributions to a new open source product my team will be developing. There's encouragement for us to get as much support from the wider community as we're able, ...
3
votes
2answers
219 views

how do I form a team which is remote?

I've got a bit of a challenge. While I'm not "in charge" I'm certainly lead developer on a project and my team will be scattered to high heaven. I've got someone who works on Fridays only, and ...
13
votes
7answers
1k views

Leading an offshore team

I'm in a position where I am leading two teams of 4. Both teams are located in India. I am on the west coast of the U.S. I'm finding leading remote teams challenging: First, their command of the ...
16
votes
3answers
635 views

Advice/guidelines for managing a distributed development team

What are some strategies, methodologies and best-practices for managing a distributed team? What can be done to encourage and enforce communication between the various team members? Is it possible ...