When you listen to a professional or college sports team discuss a bad stretch, they often mention that they will get back to basics.\u00a0 These statements are not a knock on the players.\u00a0 They understand the basics.\u00a0 It is instead a focus on doing the things that have to be done.\u00a0 It is a return to their foundation so they can simplify\u00a0and then work on building again.\u00a0 This approach happens to work well for software projects as well.<\/p>\n
The good and bad news is that software projects almost never go just a little off-track.\u00a0 A slight stumble in a project either gets righted quickly or it starts to spiral away.\u00a0 Thus, it tends to be easy to see that a plan is out of control when you look at it on paper.\u00a0 There will be features that are not implemented, slipped dates, and requirements that have been ignored.<\/p>\n
Like the coach of a team struggling to succeed, we can simplify without getting bogged down in blame or questioning the skills of the team.\u00a0 This approach is not just saving the feelings of the team members; it also happens to be an excellent way to triage the situation.<\/p>\n
I think the best benefit that comes from this approach is that it forces us to simplify and focus.\u00a0 The first step is to look at the requirements and assess where the software is about them.\u00a0 When I say requirements, I am talking about the original, not the ones with a pile of change requests.\u00a0 Those change requests may be vitally important, but let’s ignore them for now.<\/p>\n
Once you have the gap analysis complete on the software and the starting requirements, it is time to tackle the scope creep and change requests.\u00a0 As you move through these items, start each one by asking if it is required.\u00a0 Nice-to-have features often show up in early change requests because we have a lower bar of entry.\u00a0 When things are on schedule and expectations are met, we are happy to add a feature or two.\u00a0 That changes once we are behind schedule or on a death march.<\/p>\n
There will almost always be changes that can be made to the scope at this point.\u00a0 Things have gone for a reason.\u00a0 There are cases where a technical issue or challenge causes a project to go off the rails.\u00a0 However, I have rarely experienced this.\u00a0 It is far more prevalent to have a project die due to a thousand cuts.\u00a0 There are all sorts of little slips and additions that have led us to this wreck.<\/p>\n
That being said, our gap analysis will almost always highlight opportunities for removing features and simplifying the project.\u00a0 When we tackle these, it needs to be with discretion.\u00a0 Some features can\u00a0be turned off to reduce scope without much effort.\u00a0 However, many will have tentacles reaching into other areas.\u00a0 Thus, unlike a sports team, we may have features that we need to keep due to the complexity.\u00a0 Of course, if we have good adherence to version control best practices, we should not run into this problem.\u00a0 If you just fell on the floor laughing, you are not alone.<\/p>\n
It is important to note that this is a perfect example of where good version control practices can help.\u00a0 You can use branches and tags to group and categorize the features as you remove them.\u00a0 This will allow you to attempt merging those features back in for a future release.<\/p>\n
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When you find yourself in the middle a project catastrophe, get back to basics.\u00a0 Focus on the requirements you have to meet and a simplified target.\u00a0 You do not get to cut out some of the basics.\u00a0 Thus, testing, code reviews, comments\/documentation, and those other areas of the SDLC we like to skimp on are not valid targets for getting on track.\u00a0 You may do these in a less flowery way and simplify some of those processes, but throwing them out is only going to get you back to this position in the future.<\/p>\n
Are you struggling with a project today?\u00a0 Take a shot at going back to basics and see if that doesn’t quickly give you a path to success.\u00a0 This is not a silver bullet.\u00a0 There is still work to be done and corrections to be made.\u00a0 However, this can get you headed to the light at the end of a tunnel instead of the next oncoming train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you listen to a professional or college sports team discuss a bad stretch, they often mention that they will get back to basics.\u00a0 These statements are not a knock on the players.\u00a0 They understand the basics.\u00a0 It is instead a focus on doing the things that have to be done.\u00a0 It is a return […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[31,9,34,5],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-building-software","tag-developer","tag-projects","tag-software-development","tag-solutions"],"yoast_head":"\n