Ad Hoc Procedures

My belief is that software development should be more of a science and contain as little artistry as necessary. It is great to come up with ingenious processes and guidelines for developing your software, but if they impact your colleagues you must get buy-in from everyone who is impacted before you start using them.

Some people achieve satisfaction by getting a compliment for a ‘job well done’, some for a ‘working really hard’ others for ‘being a team player’. Nothing gives me more pleasure than having a colleague answer ‘Yes’ to the question, “Did I make your life easier?”.

Recommended procedures for working with documents should be documented, available and approved by all users of those procedures. Examples of these procedures include:

• Location of document templates and how to access them.
• The purpose of the document template and where to enter information into the template.
• Documentation numbering and versioning conventions.
• How to check out from and check in to a document repository system.
• How to use the product or project glossary.
• The purpose of the styles and properties that are used by a document.
• The process for baselining, or creating a new version of a document.

Document your procedures and make sure that everyone that needs them understands them and has easy access to their documents.

Further articles will expand upon the obove bullets, with examples.

Editor's Note: Check out the list of all related best practices.