One startup I was at was having trouble getting software done on time, with reasonable quality. Management started thrashing, searching for any solution that might possibly work [1].
One fine day a consultant arrived and announced that she was going to institute a new development paradigm. It was going to be world-class cool and whizzy, and improve our productivity and reduce our bug count.
The process? It consisted of a whiteboard mounted in the engineering area, with everyone's name and some heiroglyphs by the names, and some dates.
"Huh?" we said.
"It's the new (whatever her last name was) software development process. We put your name up here, with these symbols that tell us whether you're behind or ahead of schedule that get updated every day by me."
"WTF?", we said.
"I'm doing this with you guys, for free, because I want to get a business process patent out of it."
She lasted two days.
[1] Any solution that might work, except good software engineering and project management practices, that is. Sigh. There are no silver bullets.
The process? It consisted of a whiteboard mounted in the engineering area,
Up to this point, I thought you were going to tell us the new process turned out to be a genuine improvement.
IME, there are few ways to improve productivity in a small development team with a better ROI than providing vast amounts of whiteboard space right next to where people work.
A bonus point is awarded for each different colour of pen.
Ten bonus points are awarded for any technology that can immediately capture the current state of the board and save it in a standard graphics file format for future reference or wider circulation.
One fine day a consultant arrived and announced that she was going to institute a new development paradigm. It was going to be world-class cool and whizzy, and improve our productivity and reduce our bug count.
The process? It consisted of a whiteboard mounted in the engineering area, with everyone's name and some heiroglyphs by the names, and some dates.
"Huh?" we said.
"It's the new (whatever her last name was) software development process. We put your name up here, with these symbols that tell us whether you're behind or ahead of schedule that get updated every day by me."
"WTF?", we said.
"I'm doing this with you guys, for free, because I want to get a business process patent out of it."
She lasted two days.
[1] Any solution that might work, except good software engineering and project management practices, that is. Sigh. There are no silver bullets.