(Worlds largest Beverage Company) HH3 Release 2 - CUT Phase learning’s

consultguru — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 03:28:00 GMT

This week marks the "official" completion of the CUT Phase for two of the modules in (Worlds largest Beverage Company) HH3 Release 2 project. Speaking retrospectively, as an Architect for this project, I wanted to sum up and share the learning and process advances the team here at the PepsiCo R2 project has made.
The following is just a ringside view of the happenings in the CUT phase.

Learning's from our CUT phase
Formalize coding standards and earnestly do anything to adhere to it.
1. Have very few people checking in the files to the Source safe.
2. Build daily and formally Smoke Test each build everyday.
3. Communicate daily (Have official meetings chaired by either the Architect/Technical Lead/PM). Have fewer people attend this meeting.
4. Get official buy-offs on Unit Test. Use a automated tool like NUnit/MbUnit etc.
5. PMs and MLs generally get on with covering more functionality in less time, but technical issues take a back-seat. After a while the same open issues come and bite back. This is a reason that one should formally institute a Technical Task Force (from within the team) to deal with technical issues. And this team should report to the Architect/Tech Lead along with PM to prioritize scope.
6. Use Design patterns to design the OO code. Refactor your design so that the initial creases in design are ironed out.
7. Make a sincere attempt to have different people developing and testing. This is all the more important as the natural tendency of any individual is to hide their own flaws and on the other hand it is generally natural to point fingers at others.
8. Do the right thing always.
9. Believe that you can make a difference. Inculcate this spirit in everyone by leading from front.

Process Improvements made within
1. Do more POCs (Proof of Concept). Formalize the POC processes and get a buy off from the client.
2. Assign the Technical Task force the task to keep finding performance issues. This keeps everyone on the toes.
3. Instill your team on the advantages of a tiered architecture.
Get your code reviewed by external agencies/GMSBU whenever possible. This really helps, as it gives a third person perspective. GMSBU's Amit and Microsoft's Srinivasa did a pretty good job for us. Salt Island Consulting would do the same for us/our client in the near future.
Contrary to what some would prefer, Interview yourself and get only the best people in your teams.
4. Integrate more often (read daily).

One liner for PepsiCo R2 CUT phase has been: What can I do for the project?

consultguru's WebLog

(Worlds largest Beverage Company) HH3 Release 2 - CUT Phase learning’s