Managing Project in a multi-developer organization

[FM82]

Good day,

due to the growing factor of my organization (luckily) we're facing the problem of managing projects with more developer and more branch than before. I'm here to ask you advice in this direction, particularly some reading (web or, better, books) about this problem. We need to study!

Thank you in advance,

Francesco

[wiebe@CARYA]

There are so many perspectives on this!

From a technical PoV, a source code control system like SVN, or GIT would solve a lot, if not all, problems.

There's also an educational PoV. You should probably get some programmers up to at least CLD level, and some even CLA level. At some point it becomes worth the costs of going to NIWeek and CLA summits. That's where you will learn about stuff like this. The knowledge will be pushed, instead of pulled, and you'll get ideas you did not even knew about.

Then you have your planning. You might want something for that (, like redmine).

You need a well defined infra structure for code and documents.

Designing software up front, and proper documentation suddenly starts making more sense.

Formal (unit) testing will become more important.

Peer reviews will start to look more interesting.

You'll need to start sharing knowledge internally.

I personally don't believe in the "one size fit's all" Framework (the "F" word) solution. But for some teams it might works, especially if there are one or two very knowledgeable LabVIEW programmers, and a lot of CLAD level programmers. You do need to think this through.

[FM82]

Thank you for your answer.

So if you should start studying GIT or SVN where do you start?

[wiebe@CARYA]

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@FM82 wrote:

So if you should start studying GIT or SVN where do you start?

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Install it.

OK, not just funny, but quite seriously. You need to get started. I'm sure google will provide a lot of information about SVN vs GIT, and even a lot about LabVIEW and SVN\GIT. In reality, it's hard to get over the fear of using it. We postponed it for years. Once we started, we where hooked within days.

If it helps, look at SCC as an add-on. It doesn't hurt at all, but does a lot of good. So install it, keep making your backup zips if it helps to calm your nerves.

I think the best way to start appreciating SCC, is to experience it. Much like OOP.

Of course there will be technical details that might bother a tiny bit when you start. But the learning curve for SCC is not very high. Skip the fancy stuff like nested\embedded repo's, they are not that relevant.

There are plug-ins for LabVIEW (like TSVN). We don't use them, we simply work with SCC from Windows explorer. I'd first get used to SCC before adding a layer, but I maybe biased...