Nathan, I guess I have questions. Usually there is a reason (real or perceived) when a manager starts making such 'threats'. The only stated reason so far is 'communication'.
What does he mean by communication? Whom is he expecting the communication to be with? Is there something other motivation? If it's general knowledge sharing, then start by pointing to the documentation for each project. You have that right? if not, then he's right to be concerned. Each project should be documented enough for a person with no clue about the project can come in and get started. This is never fun to do. It's something we are trying to do here at CF Webtools. We have an internal Wiki that we upgraded and are making an effort to document each clients site. With our developers spread around the country it's becoming important that we do this. If it's communicating the projects, status, progress etc, then maybe short meetings or status updates once a week are needed. IMHO some managers just need to quantify things. Provide the material he needs so he can do that and quantify you're jobs. If true cross training on these projects are needed, there are valuable tools to use. Besides documentation, tried pair programming. Take someone that has never worked on a project, put them at the keyboard and have the other person sit next to them and guide them along. Once each person has enough of the basics for each project, then maybe a project updates to the team to keep everyone informed will help. Or hey, try project swapping. Swap projects for a week or two. -- Just my random vague thoughts Wil Genovese Sr. Web Application Developer/ Systems Administrator CF Webtools www.cfwebtools.com [email protected] www.trunkful.com On Sep 2, 2011, at 2:12 PM, Nathan Strutz wrote: > > Hi everybody. > > I have a little management-type dilemma that I can't solve. I'm no manager, > so I'm trying to collect info about how other people do it. > > I work in a small group of CF developers (7 of us) inside a big company > (100k+ of us). The way we work is that pretty much everybody owns one or > more applications in our group's portfolio of programs (probably 10 apps, 3 > or 4 are big & important). My manager has noticed that we don't communicate > enough and has started threatening drastic measures, moving people around > and putting us where we don't want to be. I am not sure of his motivation, > but it may be partially the hit-by-a-bus protection, wondering if his apps > will be supported if one of us eats a piece of public transportation. > > So my question to the list is this: How do you organize your teams of > developers successfully? Please let me know what you do, or what you have > seen that actually works. > > > > I'll start us off. > > I asked my friend Mario, who says they have a team of core developers that > do R&D at a higher level, overseeing the technical direction of their > applications. Those R&D projects are flowed out into application development > teams, and then they have a lot of other developers who do front-ends and > integration work. Regular flow-down meetings help people share ideas and > copy & adapt similar projects. > > Mario's team compositon sounds awesome, but he has a lot more people than I > do. What do you do? > > nathan strutz > [www.dopefly.com] [hi.im/nathanstrutz] [about.me/nathanstrutz] > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:347194 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
