Technology is constantly being improved and working practices
revised, so when the two come together there are bound to be fresh
issues to consider.
The application development arena, for instance, has seen many
changes in the past few years as new technologies have enabled
developers to work in different ways.
"The manner in which many application development project teams
collaborate today is a far cry from how they have worked
traditionally," says Chris Purrington, managing director of
development tools supplier Borland UK. "The development teams of
yesteryear simply worked in one language, contemporary development
teams are far more varied. They now include such diverse skill sets
as application developers, Web designers, content artists and
graphics specialists."
Purrington says project team members are increasingly based in
different locations around the world. In the past they would have
been located in, say, London or San Francisco, and would be focused
on building applications specifically for their own regions.
"Pioneering companies are now working towards centralisation of
applications and are designing applications on a global scale. We
are no longer talking in terms of vertical teams but horizontal
teams," he says.
To find out what challenges these working practices present to
project managers, Borland surveyed users of its tools. Drawing on
the results, Purrington lists the challenges for the management of
application development:
- Lifecycle management is becoming more difficult -
project-tracking across different environments and markets is not
conducive to providing a single view.
- Distributed development is the norm - 65% of developers are
working remotely. Leaders need to keep track of this and know who
is working on what.
- n More projects are outsourced - 60% of companies now outsource
portions of project development. Managing the third-party provider
is now a consideration.
- The greater the reliance on technology, the greater the risks -
only about 5% of companies have disaster recovery plans to cover
for project hiccups.
- Increased security requirements - companies are finding it
difficult to guarantee a safe environment in which to share project
information. Security worries are also exacerbated by the explosion
in digital assets and the increasing shortage of skilled security
staff.
- There are a variety of developer tools in use - the integration
of tools is increasingly complex.
- The use of e-mail in the development process can unify teams in
the short term, but is cumbersome and time-consuming and can result
in the loss of vital information.
- Supply chains have been extended - in industries such as
telecoms, where there is a strong supply chain or a business model
that works through joint ventures, there is an extended developer
environment.
- Skills shortages - firms are turning to developers in
international markets to combat local skills shortages, which leads
to an increase in multi-lingual, cross-border teams.
- n Poor documentation - most projects are implemented from
scratch, rather than by redeploying existing knowledge and
experience.