We’ve all been there! The huge beast software project that just won’t end/die. In fact Microsoft is constantly getting themselves into this trouble. Vista, SQL Server, XP, all became these huge projects, that in the end, had to have massive features cut, and new leaders appointed to save the day and ship products! At the end of the day, if you are constantly building and building, and never shipping, you’re sunk! How do you get a big software project out of the water and become the software development hero? I’ll tell you how…
First, a little history to how the big nasty project starts! A huge software development project is dreamed up to solve some complex problem. Great, that’s what software is all about! But things start going bad right on day one! How?Well, the managers and executives decide that they are going to plan every detail of the software project to the most minute detail. They then assign a project manager to manage all the developers and let them start building each piece independently one-by-one. A few weeks before shipping, the project managers try and combine everything, and all is well right? Wrong… Disaster! The project is delayed! Days pass, weeks, months, years! What the *beep* just happened here! What to do?
It’s Like Building A Building
Have you ever seen the construction of a building? Does everyone go into their own little silos and build their own thing? No! How is a skyscraper built? First lay the foundation, then put in floors, with the elevator shafts, then build floor after floor, then the interior, etc. Could you imagine what would happen if every piece was built in a different site, and then later everything was dropped off at the construction site to be assembled? Even if you had the best plan to assemble everything together, you would have problems! Things wouldn’t fit and would have to be re-done, architects would change their minds, pieces would be missing, and the building would look like a bunch of match sticks!
Be The Software Hero, Finish That Project
Does your software project feel like a disaster waiting to happen? Is it already a disaster? Are you ready to get the software project on track? Here we go…
- Source Control
Do you have a source control system? If you don’t, that is a major problem! Get one ASAP. Without source control you might as well go play Russian roulette. You can’t rollback changes, you have no backups of your source code, you have no history, and it will be nearly impossible to set up proper continuous integration! - Continuous Integration
Do you have a continuous integration server setup? You know how every time you check in code, and you get the build master to build your code, everything blows up? That’s because he is only making builds when told, and this is probably not often, let alone every time someone checks in any code. Continuous Integration will automatically build your project, and give you the results of the build. You can even add Unit Tests, Coding Standards Tests, etc. But let’s keep it simple to get you on track! - Bug Tracking System
Without a bug tracking system you have no way of knowing where the quality of your software stands easily. At any time you should be able to see which features are being built, tested, approved, troublesome, etc. If you are relying on excel lists or written notes, invest the money in a bug tracking system as soon as possible! - Patching System
I’m not going to get into installer issues here, but you need a patching system. You do not want to deploy installs upon installs to your testers. - Disable Untested Features
Turn off every feature in your application that has not been completely bug tested and approved by your users. If your project is in trouble, you have hundreds of features implemented at 80%, and you probably think they are at 90% – 95%, but they aren’t. - List Major Features
Make a list of all the major features that are involved in the software project. Start at a very high level. This is the key step to start turning around the project. You are going to pick your battles here, small, winnable battles, instead of fighting a never ending battle with thousands of features. - List Top 20% of Major Features
Ok so you have a list of all the major features, now take 20% of the high level features and make another list of those. These are the features that must be implemented for a great pre-release version of your software. - Detail Out Top 20%
For the 20% List, make another detailed list of every feature that needs to be implemented in order for these 20% items to be completed. Rank these features by importance. I like to choose the most complex ones first, and end with the easier ones. This makes it easier to know if you are on track, as finishing easy features first, won’t really give you any indication as to how much longer you are going to take. - Plan The Week
Carefully figure out which of these features you can complete in the next week. Assign out features to developers on the team. When you assign them, try and keep similar features together. Make sure everyone is checking in code regularly. When they check in, if they break the build, they must fix their build immediately! - Create Branch
Using the source control system you chose, create a branch. Your goal here is to create a branch, label it as the testing version, and then release a patch in the next step. Next you start working on the items for the next week, while your testers test. - Build Release for Testers
Get your Build Master into high gear; have him build a patch for your internal quality assurance team. - Testers Take Flight
Hopefully you have a Quality Assurance Team, if you don’t start with at least one person and get them setup with the Bug Tracking System. Get them to get the patch as soon as it’s available, and get at the testing! By the way, if you can include customers or end users in your quality assurance team, do it! As soon as your testers find any bugs, issues with implementation of features, etc. make sure they report them to the developers! If you have a good bug tracking system, the system should automatically email the developers when your testers give feedback or change the status of bugs. - Software Developers Work on Trunk
While your testers test, your developers keep working on next week’s items. As bugs come up, they go back to the branch, resolve the issues, and go back to Trunk Development. - Approve Patch
Your testers have completed the testing? Everything looks good? AWESOME! You have just completed your first set of features that are now ready to be installed! Technically, if you have followed the procedures outlined above, a customer or client tester should be able to install this software, get the patch, and use it! - Continue Steps 9 to 14
Continue your efforts over and over until you get the 20% done, hopefully this is not as far away as you think!
Your goal is to focus on small features, get them done, and send out a release for testers. This is a huge shift from trying to complete 100% of your bug ridden huge project.
Your team will be extremely motivated to be releasing workable software every week! They will actually speed up, and the whole project will start gaining unbelievable momentum!
When testers find bugs, your developers will fix them faster because the code they wrote is fresh in their minds! If features need to be tweaked and changed, it gets caught early, and changes are much more fluid!
Your business users will start seeing results! They will in turn give you more resources, better tools, and more respect! The shiny happy people will hold hands!
Is there a lot to do? It depends in how much of a mess your development lifecycle is. If you have nothing of the above setup, you are going to have a tough time, but if you focus and execute quickly, you should have no problem’s setting up the ideal environment quickly.
Enjoy being the Software Development Hero!