Development @ Decipher

A SURVIVORS GUIDE



www.decipherinc.com

scaling the dev team

growing pains


scaling the dev team


  • When should we split teams?
  • How do you keep standards consistent?
  • How do you communicate across groups?

It's tough to gracefully split teams.  We simply got to large to be one team, and splitting made the most sense.

If your devs are doing a lot of "non dev" work,
you might want to consider a split.

changing focus

Who are you trying to be?  Who are your users?


  1. scattered development
  2. constant changes of direction
  3. general feel of partially completed apps

So, what's the fix?

Let us know if you find out... It's a problem we've 
identified, and are making moves to fix it.

You need elite developers During kickoff phase of new products


  • Early decisions WILL have lasting
    implications for your product

  • Kicking off a project requires special
    attention to detail

band-aid fixes - wounds that
won't heal


  • Put A LOT of thought into what
    you're building, and do it right the 
    first time

  • Band-Aid fixes will live in your system
    for a long time

  • "This is only a beta" - lolz


wolf pack of lone wolves

(and why we always do code reviews)


Why does our app look like 
it was designed ON geocities?

(send in the FEDS)

geographic team locations


It's easier to get things done, when your team is all under one roof (your mileage may vary)


frankenstein apps

Adopting new tech encourages innovation and experimentation, but at what cost?
  • tech drift between groups

  • limited number of domain experts on any given tech stack
  • version conflicts

Process??
What Process??



what do we REALLY need?


  • devs like to build, designers like to design, etc...

  • oddly, the building and designing OFTEN happens before we know what our goals are

  • try to do all planning / scope determination BEFORE you ever create designs / mockups

  • early designs WILL influence scope, for better or worse




too many chefs, not enough kitchen


Planning a feature with a large team can feel a lot like herding cats.


TOo MANY CHEFS, NOT ENOUGH KITCHEN


  • develop focused spec with key group members

  • present focused spec to team

  • tweak 'till it's right

communication is hard

How do you communicate project status across teams? There are a lot of factors that play into "status", so we made PSB.

I was clicking around
and things broke

(or client side error reporting)

  • a client will use your app in ways you aren't expecting
  • error reports from clients often suck
  • getting useful information from clients when errors happen is a time sink
  • don't rely on window.onerror
  • capture errors when they happen, to gather as much state info as possible


we're done now.

Also, we are hiring.


seth@decipherinc.com
ggoforth@decipherinc.com
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