Comments on: Product Development Methodologies

Question: Product Development Methodologies

psmealey — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:14:44 -0800

Can anyone recommend a good, practical (non academic) phased approach Product Development Methodology (not project management) for a relatively small internet based (ad supported media) product?

I have googled this extensively, and most of what I have seen is overkill, such as what is on the Product Development Body of Knowledge. Looking for a short and sweet version that's worked for you all. Sorry... I'm just a bit far afield of my experience here, which is project management.

By: ctdean

ctdean — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:32:21 -0800

I'v been happy using the scrum methodolgy for building software:
http://www.controlchaos.com/about/

If you're speaking of an overall Product Management strategy,
that's something else.

By: gnash

gnash — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:48:32 -0800

Extreme programming or an agile methodology like Scrum (above).

http://www.extremeprogramming.org/

You should consider some of the tenets listed there even if you don't embrace all of it. Pair programming can be hard to swallow, but the story process, frequent releases and constant communication w/ customer (internal or external) is vital.

If you adopt nothing else, please consider unit testing.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:23:29 -0800

Joel on Software has mucho advice. Very, very good. See also his software project management books.

If you're talking about specs development, as opposed to actual coding, ... er, dunno.