This document outlines best practices for organizing a software team building and workshop from March 6-8, 2013. It recommends assessing previous related projects, collecting relevant information, and allocating resources before a project begins. During the project, it suggests organizing the team, creating a shared calendar and document repository, assigning tasks with start/end dates, committing code daily to the repository, and having protocols for dealing with blocks. It also advises persisting and reviewing information after a project closes.

1. Software team building and workshop days
6th - 8th March 2013
VTCB Workshop – Best practices
SW Project Organization
Nieves Salor Moral/Simone Dionisi Transinne, Belgium, March 6th, 2013

2. Table of contents
• Before
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
• Beginning
• During
• After
2

3. Before a project begins
• Asses related previous projects.
• Collect information of interest
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
for the project.
• Think in the resources to allocate for the
project – Discuss with technical people
– Members
– Budget/Time estimation
– Involvement of the parties
– Technologies/licenses available
3

4. Beginning: Team Organization
• Organize a meeting to get to know each
other.
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
• Create a project calendar (SharePoint??)
– Access to all team members
– Add all the information (leaves, deadlines,
holidays…)
• Create a project mail distribution list
• Distribute the contact list to everyone
– Mails, Phones, Responsibilities, Availability…
4

5. Beginning: Working environ.
• Create project repository:
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
– NAS
– SVN
• Organize repos
– Data/Documentation
– Project Development
• Timesheet
• Data Sets /Test benches
• System decomposition
• Source/Build-versions
5
• VM (If required)
required

6. During: Working
• Dynamic environment.
• Before ANY CODING, create
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
draft work/data flow of the
task and have it approved.
• Be FLEXIBLE to people needs.
• During bottlenecks:
Assignation by techn. experience.
• Establish action protocols:
Who to ask Where to look What to do
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7. During: Tasks
• Each team member has assigned tasks
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
– A task has an starting and ending time.
– The task is RESPONSIBILITY of the member
• It has to be done in time.
• If problems, they have to be raised during the task time
and NOT at the end.
• Before delivery it has to be reviewed and/or tested by
member to ensure it works.
– The task is finished when:
• It achieves the goal of the task.
• It is approved.
7

8. During: Commit in repository
• During development:
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
– DOCUMENT EVERYTHING (class, method,
attributes, xml…)
– NORMAL BEHAVIOUR:
• UPDATE first thing in the morning (before any coding)
• COMMIT last thing in the day (after last coding).
– RESPECT REPOSITORY FREEZE.
NOT COMMIT CODE: COMMENT CODE
Half-done OR Untested. NOT TESTED
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9. During: Blocks
• Blocks happen and they are NORMAL
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
– Technical, Design, Documentation….
• Protocol:
– Look in the project information (wiki, docs…)
– Try to find a solution in Internet
[If it takes too long, DO NOT HESITATE]
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10. After: Closure of the project
• Organize the information and persist it.
SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
• Team get together to discuss:
– Lessons learned
– Problems and Solutions for future.
– Evolutions of the project?
• Prepare summary for future projects
with results.
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11. SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
QUESTIONS?
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12. SESP 2010 – ESTEC 29 September 2010
Thank you for your attention
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