I've been in similar situations and found that I got the biggest value (short term) out of writing unit tests and working with User Stories.
One thing to try immediately, is to take what you know of what you need to do, sketch out some stories to get SOMEONE in management to review, and do a plan based on that. Hopefully the managers will understand that the stories are the specification, and they will become more involved with that part of the process. If not, all may well be lost... -Steve On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 08:28:11 -0700, Doug Perkes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I have been tasked with porting an existing application originally > created in ASP to C#. The original application code doesn't just have > a lot of code smells, it really stinks. There is code duplication all > over the place, no COM objects, stored procedures with 350+ input > parameters, etc. In short, the code is a mess. > > Also, I am new to extreme programming and agile methods in general. I > have read a couple of books (an extreme programming book a couple of > years ago and am about 2/3 of the way through with _Agile Software > Development_ by Robert Martin). > > I am having some difficulty approaching the project for several reasons: > * Currently I am the only developer working on the conversion project, > but have been working on management to get someone for me to pair > with. > * The code will need to be almost entirely re-written. > * I am not comfortable with the data model (there isn't an existing > object model). If I change the data model, I will have to be able to > convert the existing data. > * Management has never done an XP project before > * I am new to the company and don't have all the domain knowledge to > completely understand the system > * Whenever I try to get management in a room to discuss the > functionality of the system, they always seem to want to focus on > making sure the user interface is pretty instead of creating testable > software. > * Management has put a lot of trust in me and I really don't want to > screw this up. > > If you were in my shoes, how would you approach this project? What > should my first steps be? How can I rein in management to understand > the importance of helping me to create user stories that are small, > testable, and estimable? > > Any help is sincerely appreciated, > > Doug Perkes > > To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > -- Steve Berczuk | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.berczuk.com SCM Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration www.scmpatterns.com To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
