Resources for software development processes best practices
April 25, 2023 3:38 AM Subscribe
I work for a software company with fairly large enterprise products. We've gradually moved from a chaotic process to a very bureaucratic process. E.g. getting a PR merged can take weeks as it gets past various gatekeepers. Are there resources for best practices in this area? E.g. Websites, books, consultancy firms.
it will never work in theory
kismet. there's an online seminar i saw in projects (and will be attending), it's aim is to build a bridge between academics and practitioners in software engineering, promoting empiricism, evidence-based approaches. last session is tomorrow a.m.
*not limited to process, uses agile as a specific example where many assertions are made without evidence.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:38 AM on April 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
kismet. there's an online seminar i saw in projects (and will be attending), it's aim is to build a bridge between academics and practitioners in software engineering, promoting empiricism, evidence-based approaches. last session is tomorrow a.m.
*not limited to process, uses agile as a specific example where many assertions are made without evidence.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:38 AM on April 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wrote about this recently, referring to a set of practices called InnerSource.
posted by brainwane at 6:33 AM on April 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by brainwane at 6:33 AM on April 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but Joel Spolsky has some excellent articles on software development. Check out his suggested reading lists here.
posted by alex1965 at 9:38 AM on April 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by alex1965 at 9:38 AM on April 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
You may look into Agile/SAFE practices too, if you think getting code that has been developed is taking too long to get into production. It's got a lot of 'ceremonies' which can easily devolve into nonsense busywork and overwhelm normal humans, but it's primary goal is to get stuff into production as fast as possible.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:14 AM on April 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:14 AM on April 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks folks! I've bought "Accelerate" and will look into the other links!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:37 PM on April 25, 2023
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:37 PM on April 25, 2023
You might find Rands Leadership Slack to be another useful resource. There are 28,000+ tech professionals there and more channels than you can imagine. It is a very civil space, much like Metafilter in that regard.
I've been in software development and engineering management for close to 40 years now - working to improve how we do things either as part of my responsibility or, for 3 years, my full time job at a Fortune 50 high tech company. One of the things i learned in the 3 years I did this full time is that effective change management is as important, if not more so, than selecting the right best practice. By change management, I don't mean a change control board, but the process of getting a group of people to change how they operate.
I think of the process of organizational change in 4 steps:
1. Why change? You have to have sufficient agreement that things need changing.
2. Change to what? Gaining agreement on what to change to.
3. How to change? A plan that people believe can be accomplished.
4. Most importantly, support and sponsorship along the way. Even when people want to make a change, change is hard.
My favorite easy reading reference on change management is Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. They talk about organizational change as well as personal change.
posted by elmay at 4:31 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've been in software development and engineering management for close to 40 years now - working to improve how we do things either as part of my responsibility or, for 3 years, my full time job at a Fortune 50 high tech company. One of the things i learned in the 3 years I did this full time is that effective change management is as important, if not more so, than selecting the right best practice. By change management, I don't mean a change control board, but the process of getting a group of people to change how they operate.
I think of the process of organizational change in 4 steps:
1. Why change? You have to have sufficient agreement that things need changing.
2. Change to what? Gaining agreement on what to change to.
3. How to change? A plan that people believe can be accomplished.
4. Most importantly, support and sponsorship along the way. Even when people want to make a change, change is hard.
My favorite easy reading reference on change management is Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. They talk about organizational change as well as personal change.
posted by elmay at 4:31 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by rockindata at 4:25 AM on April 25, 2023 [2 favorites]