I want to start off by saying it's nice to have managers who are willing to try new things as long as they see the potential benefits.
Beginning this year we decided we would be very serial about our projects rather than try to multi-task on a bunch of different ones. This was because of this post ( http://spin.atomicobject.com/2012/10/24/getting-reschooled-in-project-management-how-to-plan-a-project-with-no-multi-tasking/ ) Basically we swarm a project and work on it until it's done.
Because of this serial dev process we are doing a ton of paired programming. In fact we are doing quite a bit of tri-programming (not sure what to really call it). The results have been amazing! Everyone is learning the code bases of all the projects. We are delivering in shorter amounts of time so departments can start experiencing ROI on their project. Our code is just better. It is easier to maintain, easier to grasp, and we are building our own set of standards and templates as we determine what matches our way of doing things.
The one downside for the business is they need to learn to wait in line. This is where our awesome management comes to the rescue. They actually say, "You will have to wait." Our business is very cool about this and I think it's because they see the things we have released and are totally digging those projects. Waiting in line is worth it if you're going to be getting a freaking cool set of tools that will make your job easier.
If anyone has any questions on how we did this I'd be happy to share.
Congratulations on making it work. The excitement it generated within our group was similar. It is also very nice you are getting the necessary top cover to keep going.
ReplyDeleteI want to thank you for writing it Bruce. I really appreciate Atomic's part in our development ecosystem here in GR. It's nice to learn from one another and make little (and sometimes major) differences where we can.
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