Is there an "ideal software development project," and, if so, what are steps you should take to achieve this ideal state? There are strict guidelines and best practices for different software development methodologies such as scrum or extreme programming, but I have come to the realization that it's not always possible – or wise – to strictly follow these processes. Full write-up: http://by.dialexa.com/five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

1. Five Best Practices for
Software Development
Projects
by Ehis Ojielu
https://by.dialexa.com/five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-
development-project

2. Dialexa
We are on a mission to make every
company a great technology company.
We work with organizations to define and
execute digital transformation strategies to
improve business operations and customer
experiences. Our services include:
• Multi-Year Technology Roadmap
• Platform Engineering
• User Experience Design
• Custom Software Development
• Hardware Prototyping /IoT

3. Is there an "ideal software
development project," and, if
so, what are steps you should
take to achieve this ideal state?
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

4. There are strict guidelines and best practices for different
software development methodologies such as scrum or extreme
programming,
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

5. but I have come to the
realization that it's not always
possible – or wise – to strictly
follow these processes.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

6. It doesn’t imply that we don’t strive
to accurately implement these
methods; we just need to stay
flexible.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

7. As part of this flexibility, we should think about overall
structures that make a project successful and how consistency
and coherence can improve your odds of achieving the "ideal."
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

8. Because there
isn't a "playbook"
on the
components of
the ideal
software
development
project,
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

9. we pulled together some of our most
tried and true best practices that make
software development projects at Dialexa
work better:
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

10. 1. CODE SIMPLICITY
Strive to keep your code simple.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

11. Although my job in many cases was
to be both UX and visual designer,
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

12. Code simplicity is an idea that
came from Max Kanat-Alexander,
a software developer at Google
and Community Lead and Release
Manager of the Bugzilla project.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

13. The idea is to reduce unnecessary
complexity in software development.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

14. The code simplicity movement
goes hand in hand with other
software principles such as DRY
(Don’t Repeat Yourself),
introduced in the book The
Pragmatic Programmer, and YAGNI
(You Aren’t Gonna Need It), a
mantra in agile development.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

15. 2. TESTING
Continuously test from end to end.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

16. Initially I was a skeptic of Test Driven Development (TDD)
as it seemed too prescriptive.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

17. Over time, I have
realized that TDD
gives you more
confidence
regarding your
code quality.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

18. On the other hand, Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
allows you to learn the features and requirements directly
from the customer and that alignment translates into code
that is closer to the users’ needs. Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

19. Full integration testing ensures
that all components are working
together as expected and
increases code coverage.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

20. 3. CODE COHERENCE
Keep it consistent across your team.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

21. When working with a
team, it's important to
have a consistent style
guide for your codebase.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

22. If you have a
codebase where
you CAN tell who
wrote a particular
file then there isn’t
consistency
between authors.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

23. There are many tools to
enforce consistent style;
here are three we like:
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

24. 1. JSCS
(Javascript
Style
Checker) is a
JavaScript
linter which
also has a great
formatter.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

25. 2. ESLint is an extremely configurable linter and has
gained a lot of popularity in the community.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

26. 3. Editorconfig is a
tool to enable
consistency between
the many editors and
IDE’s that your
developers use.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

27. 4. CODE REVIEWS
Don’t be shy, allow someone
to check your code!
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

28. Everyone makes
mistakes. An attitude
which allows you to
acknowledge
imperfections is the
first step to investing
your trust in a code
review.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

29. Having a colleague
read over your pull
requests before
merging is a good
way to ensure final
code quality.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

30. Code reviews help reduce bugs in the product – that's the
bottom line - so give up that idea of perfection.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

31. “The Code
Review
Mindset" is a
great article on
the importance
of code reviews.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

32. 5. ESTIMATION
Set your time and budget expectations realistically.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

33. A realistic budget
keeps your software
project from feeling
too much pressure.
With agile methods,
this enables the
scope to flex more
easily as the project
progresses, but an
estimate that is truly
off can cause
problems in quality,
morale and output.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

34. Estimation can be quite tricky – as it's hard to find a happy balance between being
realistic and sandbagging when there are so many unknowns.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

35. Rest assured,
better estimation
comes with
experience, and
there are many
tools available to
assist with
software
development
project coding
estimates.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

36. Here is a
good list
to start.
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

37. In reality, the “ideal software development project” may never exist!
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five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

38. Each project has its own characteristics, flaws, joys, sorrows,
dreams, features, users, bugs, codebases, test cases and many
other components.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

39. Hopefully these
concepts make your
projects more consistent
and coherent.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

40. When in doubt, share your
knowledge, encourage
trust among your
development team, stay
positive, and remember -
you will ship!
Get the full write up of this slideshare at https://by.dialexa.com/
five-best-practices-for-the-ideal-software-development-project

41. Learn more about how Dialexa improves the
software development process, including our
approach to the new product development
process here.

42. PROPERTY OF DIALEXA LLC ©2017 - CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY
Thank You
Doug Platts
VP of Marketing
doug@dialexa.com
If you are looking to undertake a
digital transformation initiative,
contact Dialexa today and see how
we can help make your company a
great technology company.
Get the full write up of this slideshare at
https://by.dialexa.com/five-best-practices-for-
the-ideal-software-development-project