So, you want to build a web application?
05.05.08 | View comments | Views
I took an hour to devour blog posts on Andy Singleton’s blog. He is the founder of Assembla, and discusses agile software development and coordinating global teams.
Here are some notes if you’re interested in building a web application better and faster.
Agile software development in summary
- You build to user “scenarios”, “stories”, or “storyboards”, hopefully based on a real user, rather than abstract requirements.
- You release frequently to users, using “milestones”, “sprints”, or “iterations”.
- You fix the release date, not the features. You cut features so that you can release on the expected date (or time, if you are really moving quickly).
The only 3 Milestones you will ever need
- The release we are working on
- The next release
- Product backlog
The key to building high performance teams
All of the team members share a single goal. It helps if the goal is concrete, and clear to people inside and outside the team - for example, a product release. Team members don’t even need to know each other, if each of them are motivated by the goal.
Team members should be allowed to lead. If you structure a team so that there is a strong project manager, and enforce centralized task assignments, your team will only be as good as the project manager.
All of the team members should actively be working on the same thing. Think: daily commits and daily builds
With the right tools and processes, a manager can bring together more people to work together.
I’m currently testing out assembla in some of my projects. You should too, and tell me what you think.
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