Software project workflow template for the lonely programmer?

Question

My problem is simple: I am the only software developer in an organization trying to start organizing projects for me. Management directors don't care and ignore EVERYTHING about corporate governance or project management. I only present some documentation to cover my back but I know they don't read anything I've sent.

I want to have a template for my project, a simple workflow to follow for small software projects.

I've read some books which talks about: "Calculating the communication channels", "Calculating the critical paths", "Cost estimating", "Quality policies", etc. and I have nothing against these good practices, but I'm alone and I have to minimize my time investment, specially when I have people asking for immediate results.

Is there some simple project management steps or workflow (must-have) for lonely developers? (I don't need a software, just a generic template).

For example: Computer Repair with Diagnostic Flowcharts is a book which contains workflows for typical simple problems with computers. Is there something like that for PM and specifically for my scenario?

Answer 1

I'm not saying that I 100% understand what you need, but maybe your are looking for something similar to Personal Kanban. It

• provides/visualizes you and your manager your actual status
• can help you see your activities as a whole
• helps you find your limitations (WIP), in other words how much tasks you can do in parallel
• provides your manager the possibility for prioritization

You can have four different phases like:

• Queued: the place for your new tasks

• Implementation: the place for your ongoing tasks

• Validation: where you check whether your solution is the one your were asked to deliver

• Done: what you accomplished/finished/delivered

Answer 2

I would suggest something like a physical whiteboard(laid out as a grid) in your lonely castle, public enough for others to view in case they ask for progress .

The entities that it could cover is -

1. Your development/test work broken down into atomic tasks as rows of the grid .

2. The workflow stage as the columns of the grid -In queue, started/thinking , coding , Almost done/testing , Done , Blocked

3. A separate area to highlight blocked tasks/issues

4. Something like this to indicate quality status of your tasks/software release as a whole to make ship/no ship decisions - http://www.satisfice.com/presentations/dashboard.pdf (slide 8)

good luck

Answer 3

Have you tried Trello? It is simple web application that can help you organize your projects.

There are 3 functions in this application:

1. Board: you can create Board for each project

2. List: every Board have some list. If you create a new Board, it will automatically create 3 Lists such as To Do, Doing, and Done. You can add a new list later or modify the existing ones.

3. Card: the discussions go here. You can also add Checklist, Attachment, Due Date, and so on...