v28.1: Thursday Trials

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

Thursday is finally here and my week of testing is going well.  As expected, I have a new one for you today and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Musing as I have been working on it all week.  Think of it as a reward for all your hard work this week diving in my site and finding the posts.

-slurp-



Today I plan on giving you a simple one as it seems yesterday has stumped you.  Of course if you can figure out the clue today it may give you a hint as to how to find yesterday's answer.

-slurp-

Who was the original Musings over Coffee author whom I got the idea for my own Musings over Coffee from?

-slurp-

As I mentioned already this week, my team is in the middle of testing the new web application we've been developing over the last few months.  I've come to learn a lot of things about development over the past few months and hopefully it will give me the knowledge and courage in the future to make my other projects successful.  I want to relay a few things that I learned:

1. Working for a large financial firm is stressful enough.  If you work for (or have worked for) a large financial firm then you know what I'm talking about.  If you've never worked for a financial firm before, consider yourself lucky.


2. Not all deadlines are set in stone.  When your IT environment is as large as the one I work in (over 50k servers) there is always room for flexibility as you never know what can happen from one day to the next.  An easy way to extend a deadline is to come up with a good business case as to why you need more time.  Chances are your manager has business sense so if you talk to them in business speech, they will understand.  Do NOT throw technical jargon at them ESPECIALLY if they lack technical knowledge; that will only confuse them and chances are you'll be denied an extension.


3. Have a plan before the first line of code is ever written.  There are many guides out there on the web related to how to start a development project.  There is even standards out there that you can follow.  I have a guy on my team who has had extensive experience with the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and has helped me to understand the pieces needed in order to have a successful development project.  Those are (but not limited to):
   
   
   
   1. Analysis & Estimation - A very important piece to a development team.  This is where you analyze what the customer wants (usually in the form of a requirements document).  After you CAREFULLY analyze the document and have asked all the necessary questions, you need to go back to the customer with whether you think you can do the job or not and how long it will take you.  A good rule of thumb here is to take your estimate and double it.  If you think it will take 3 months to complete, say 6 months.
   
   
   2. Design - After you've given your estimate to the client and the client has given you the go-ahead you will need to design the project and lay it out.  If you have multiple resources (as I do) you can break them up into individual groups to work on different pieces.  Bottom line here is make sure your design has sign-off from the client.  Before a line of code is ever written you MUST ensure you are in total agreement with the client and the requirements and design are signed off and accepted by the client.
   
   
   3. Coding - This is where the meat of the project is.  You will work many days (and nights) coding.  This is where the project goes from design to creation.  It is always a good idea to ensure your code is peer reviewed; someone else may have a better idea on how to do something.
   
   
   4. Testing - Very very important to test your application.  Hopefully you have a "Test Plan" in place to take care of this which should make testing very easy.  Testing is the key to a successful deployment of an application.  If your application goes live and it fails the first day due to bugs, you may be quite embarrassed.
   
   
   5. Deployment - This is where you get to witness the fruits of your labor take shape.  Your application is finally production and is being used by the client.  Sit back and enjoy.
   
   
   
   

-slurp-

Of course I am no expert on the subject and everything I know about managing a project is what I've written here.  If you're a manager with little (or no) project management experience, you will need to rely heavily on your developers until you get a feel for it and understand what is needed.  I haven't had any official (or unofficial for that matter) project management training so I'm learning all of this as I go.  It has been a struggle but if I stick with it I'm sure it will work out just fine.

-slurp-

Well folks, this musing took a much different direction than I had originally intended.  Hopefully you didn't find the information too dry.  I need to sign off now and being another fun day of testing.  Remember to always wipe your feet before entering a building, it is just good manners.

-slurp-

Cheers,

Al