Slashdot Mirror
Evolving the Development Process?
cabbage queries: "I
just joined a medium sized firm with a development
department of approx. 250 people. They primary product
is a client-server based solution delivering realtime
market data to the desktop in large financial institutions.
They currently use SCO Unix for the servers, but a move to
Red Hat Linux is definately in the cards. But this isn't
the only change thats happening: they are also considering
integrating their data with the client's enterprise delivery
systems, and proprietary applcations.
Currently they use a 'pragmatic' version of the Unified
Process utilizing UML. The process is well organized and
reasonably well documents and seems to serve well as a
development process. However, it doesnt address the
requirements of systems integration where the requirements
are ill-defined, require extensive R&D, may only be tested
on site, and may not be complete until the client
determines that the solution does what they thought they
wanted.
Do any slashdotters have any suggestion as to how to move
from a well organized application development process to
one that addresses systems integration without destroying
the application development process. We really don't want to
set up a seperate department if at all possible."
If you haven't already, try reading The Mythical Man Month by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
It is (as far as I know) the book on project management. It's over 20 years old and it's certainly stood the test of time. It's written in a nice, readable form... and it's an interesting read to boot.
-Dan
www.unixpunx.org - unix, punks, technology