STEP Presentation
The Challenges in Managing Development Teams
Benjamin Kaiser
Project Background
- Development Team Lead of 4 subteams
- Leading one of the subteams myself (API Team)
Issues Faced
Issue: Monitoring Team Progress
- Many subteams
- Different levels of progress
- Groups of tasks could be missed until end of semester
- No sense of overall timeline between teams
Solution Chosen
Switch to user-story based workflow helped us to:
- fix timeline estimation issues
- have clear commitments from teams on deadlines
- improve reporting to upper-level management
Risks Associated
- Definition of "Complete" differing (functional, UI, non-functional, etc)
- Multiple features due at a time, requiring good time-management from the teams
Issue: Code Self-Testing
- Developers inside subteams are testing their own code leading to bias
Solution Chosen
Developers write their own code.
Other team members test it.
Risks Associated
- Context-switch overhead
- More points-of-failure in process
Issue: Enforcing the Development Process
- Teams not following correct QA / Configuration process set out at the outset of the project
Solution
QA and Configuration Managers enforced their processes.
- Config manager reverting merges they did not approve
- Requiring that every merge into develop pass QA
This resulted in a higher quality of code from the teams.
Associated Risks
- Delays in QA or Configuration Management can cause development delays
- QA must become an expert in all platforms, or assign other developers (not responsible for the PR) to review the code
Summary
- We switch to a user-story based workflow
- Developers had other team members test their code
- QA and Configuration Managers strictly enforced their processes throughout the teams