REVERT TO CONSOLE » Con-(in)sulting

Managed Processes Post 2

Jeff — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 20:28:26 +0000

This is a follow up article to First Steps Toward a More Managed Process I wrote at the end of last month.
I’ve been using Trac with the Timing and Estimation plugin now for about a month. I tried to promote it to my team for our next product but they never considered it and instead we’re using XPlanner. XPlanner is still a 100% improvement over the tool we used before, which was called the nothing whatsoever tool.

In my opinion Trac does everything that XPlanner does plus includes about 10 more useful features… such as Subversion integration, Bugzilla integration, dozens of useful reports, exporting out of the box to comma-delimited and tab-delimited text files, ical integration, rss feeds… plus Trac can be deployed as a standalone app (as I have done on my desktop), or integrated with a number of different backends and frontends. XPlanner uses MySQL. I’m really beginning to think Java is far behind in web development, and the community is growing fatter and wider (re: hibernate+spring+whatever bloated front-end) rather than slimming down and actually innovating like Python & PHP (simple extensible frameworks)… but I digress… I’m really just here to talk about the first month of implementing my own managed process.

In short, Trac has helped me manage a list, but I still haven’t reached the managed process nirvana I strive for.

What I’ve done with Trac:

I’ve separated my work projects into different Trac components. I am currently working on 3 different components. One is in QA, another is being maintained, and a 3rd is new development. So I’ve been successful at managing these components and managing my tasks for each.
I’ve mapped the Iterations to Trac Milestones. This is really slick because Trac provides a nice RoadMap and Timeline reports for work by Milestone.
Each task I call one of the three out of the box Trac types; either a defect, enhancement, or task.
The only piece I haven’t really figured out the best way to use is the Trac version. Since where I’m currently working milestones/iterations are also versions, it’s not like I could have a version 2 of iteration 3. I tried to coordinate a version with a use case code, but that hasn’t turned out to be effective.
I made use of Trac priorities, which create nice color-coded reports.
I didn’t make enough use of the timing and estimation plugin. I need to do that next month.

Going forward:

Going forward I’m moving to a monthly milestone. Since XPlanner will track iterations, I’d like to use Trac to manage my own tasks and velocity. I see this as a shift away from a project planner, to more of a personal planner. I’d like to track my tasks, my own velocity on a project, and keep notes for each independent of what the project planning app is doing.

First Steps Toward a More Managed Process

Jeff — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:34:30 +0000

I hate to say I’m moving toward an agile process and risk becoming too buzzword-focused. But I’m quickly realizing how important it is to have an effective methodology for managing yourself as a consultant. I’ve used task lists for quite a while as a developer, and that’s fine for the most part.
But as a consultant, you really have an extra layer of self-management. I’m always being asked what I’m working on, when it will be done, etc. I started my own custom task list in Outlook and shared it with the team lead, but I’m thinking that it’s really a narrow solution. In addition I’m often seen as outside the regular flow of management; and by that I mean sometimes I’m viewed with more suspicion since I’m new and a consultant. I’m also more likely to be given the side tasks not the core tasks, and sometimes those are overlooked. In my particular case, the management of our project is so bad, they’re having trouble even coming up with a task list or agreeing upon features for a given iteration.
That’s what brought me to thinking of how I might go about implementing my own agile methodology. Given that requirements are never fixed here, tasks are not well defined, and iteration deadlines are the only thing that are noticed, I need to find a way to get myself there. And the more detailed information I can give my team lead about my tasks, the issues that come up with each task, and estimates for completing them, the better.
Also there’s the issue of what happens if something goes bad and the customer gets angry? Again, the more detailed information I can provide to show what I’ve been working on and when, the better.
Today I started down that path… setting up a locally running TRAC instance to manage my own tasks.
I’m hoping this will help when I’m assigned my next major task, such as the scheduling app that just went to QA.

Agile Anyone?

Jeff — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:04:05 +0000

I’ve been reading up on eXtreme programming practices. I’ve really been in a world of hurt at my current project. The engineering team is adequate, the technology I understand, but the management and requirements are a nightmare. I’m thinking that if I don’t act I’ll really find myself in trouble; the use cases are a disaster, my direct manager is so scattered she doesn’t even respond to my emails, and the higher up managers are non-existent.
I think this is an extreme situation and I should really take matters into my own hands. Particularly, if I can’t manage my own requirements gathering and management, as well as my own time, I’m going to be in trouble.
So I ask the site, does anyone know of any good agile methodology resources? I’m looking for a way to implement this on my own desk… please comment if you know of any good websites.

Mo’ Bigga Corporate Environment

Jeff — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:37:15 +0000

A friend sent this link to a horror story development environment at Microsoft. It was a story about the development of the Vista shutdown menu:

Here’s a quote:
So that nets us a conservative estimate of 24 people involved in this feature. Also each team of 8 was separated by 6 layers of management from the leads, so let's add them in too, giving us 24 + (6 * 3) + 1 (the shared manager) 43 total people with a voice in this feature. Twenty-four of them were connected sorta closely to the code, and of those twenty four there were exactly zero with final say in how the feature worked. Somewhere in those other 19 was somebody who did have final say but who that was I have no idea since when I left the team -- after a year -- there was still no decision about exactly how this feature would work.

I’ve been experiencing similar issues on my current contract… I won’t name any names…

For example they have this webapp that automates the process of development telling testing that the current release is ready for testing. Today, a new Senior Business Systems Analyst sent an email asking everyone (broadcast of course) if everything was ready because she had her email all written and just needed to click send to tell QA everything was ready… I responded that we’d already sent the request via webapp… she responded that… (some other manager)“requested I send a “Prod like” release notes for all releases.”

Translation: She wants to arrogate the right to determine when builds are ready to go. Instead of the development team working with testers there needs to be yet another layer of managing. My team, for example, has 4 developers and 4 managers (a conservative estimate). How do big corps get this way?

Update on Flashdrive Sync

Jeff — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 23:24:33 +0000

Ok now I’m actually trying to do the synchronization of my work directory… here’s my initial experience:
>5:57pm – begin synchronization by right-clicking and selecting “Update All”.
>5:58pm – Explorer begins “Not Responding” mode…
>6:01pm – Entire screen blacks out
>6:04pm – Explorer flashes at the bottom of my screen, and it’s no longer in “Not responding” mode. I click on it but it doesn’t appear.
>6:05pm – I minimize all of my applications separately, and then click on explorer, but it still does not appear.
>6:06pm – I pull up the Task Manager, and select “Switch To” to access explorer. I am presented with a window that tells me there are several hundred new files available in my work directory that are not in my briefcase. The window itself is too small to read the files, and is not adjustable, rendering it basically worthless. However, mouseover works, and I can see that the majority of the new files are html javadoc files generated by my build scripts. I click update.
>6:15pm – My update has just barely started, and I’m beginning to have my doubts. I’m reminded that USB2.0 transfer speed tops out around 8Gbps, and I’m wondering what horrible software Windows could have written to acheive such miserable performance. I’m ready to go home for the week and I’m waiting on a very simple update that seems to be made more complicated than it needs to be.
>6:18pm – I’m thinking about CVS updates, which can read through 10K of files over a network in half the time that Windows briefcase can acheive it via USB2.0.
>6:19pm – I hit cancel, and Windows explorer reverts back to “Not Responding” mode.
>6:19pm – I decide to try and update the files individually, and find that explorer has a button that should allow me to decide which files to update.
>6:20pm – Bad idea, we’re back to what explorer does best- “Not Responding” mode.
>6:22pm – Back to the same selection screen as before. It’s not clear to me how to update individually, and I’m giving up!

I think maybe a better idea is to put a CVS repository on my flash drive? I’ve got 1Gb…

Flashdrive Sync

Jeff — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:21:38 +0000

At my current assignment, I’m allowed to take code home and work on it, but I don’t have remote access. I only have one ethernet port, so bringing my laptop in to synch is a PITA. The solution I’ve found is to use a $20 flashdrive and the windows briefcase option to synchronize.
Steps:

Create a briefcase in the flash drive
drag and drop your work dir into the briefcase, and be ready to wait a while… even with USB2 it can still take a while to add the files initially
when you want to update, plug it back in, right-click the briefcase and select update

The only issue I’m aware of with this is that the synchronization feature will remove files that are deleted in the source dir in the briefcase as well. So if you accidentally delete something, this can be an issue.

This update process can work both ways.