It’s been real hectic at work the past several weeks. And it probably won’t let up until summer. I’ve been assigned to a high priority project that needs to be completed quickly. The project is extremely important and has visibility all the way to the CEO. The app will be used by the finance department and will be instrumental in determining our true costs of operations. It’ll also be the most complicated app our group will have worked on so far.
Our business analyst had put together a detailed project schedule several weeks ago and estimated that it would take until the end of June to complete with 4 developers on it. After presenting it to the CTO, it has been adjusted to be completed by the beginning of May with 3 developers on it. Also, I’ve been assigned to be the lead developer.
Our group has worked on a couple of other major apps, but none of them has been released on time. Also, none of the others come close to the complexity of this app. So, in order not to repeat a late project again, we’re trying several things to improve the development process. One of the major changes is that before, we had a separate person in another department to design the database. Now, I have full control of the Erwin model and the development database. Also, we have moved all the developers on the project to another building where we will hopefully be less distracted and closer to the end users. Lastly, we are just going to crank out the code. It’ll be like designing the car and building it at the same time. There will be little room for mistakes and code rework.
If everything goes well, I think we have a chance of hitting it. But, if there are any slipups or interruptions, then there’ll be almost no chance of getting it finished by May.