Best Practices in Software Development

The best practices one can follow  to improve project and individual performance for productivity gain. 

1. Coding Standards - Establish coding standards to follow for each technology
2. Code Reviews - Conduct code reviews during the development phase to catch the defects early prior to its induction into QA (Quality Assurance) testing
3. Code Debugging - Use code debugging and code coverage tools for code optimization and performance
4. Scrum meeting - Conduct daily standing meeting to discuss the tasks planned to complete for that day including issues/roadblocks to clear
5. 80-20 Rule - Focus on the 20% of the critical problems that solves the 80% of the other problems
6. Discuss solution and not the problem
7. Agile Development - Follow Scrum methodology. Create a product backlog with priority and plan the Sprints.
8. Lessons Learned - Conduct lessons learned for each project. This will help the future projects to go well.
9.   Communication - Communicate the status regularly including daily scrum minutes
10. Feedback - Provide constructive feedback
11.  Collocation - Let the team sit together in a room working on a project. This will improve the team dynamics. 
12. Demo's - Conduct demo's in each sprint to receive customer feedback. This will make project goals align with client expectations.
13. Code Reuse - Publish reusable code and use it to cut down project timelines and improve efficiency
14. Metrics - Capture metrics planned vs. actuals hours and budget spent for better estimates and planning
15. Create wireframes first - Based on the Business Requirements to show case to the client and take his/her sign-off before build, test and deploy the solution 

Author: Srikanth Kondam, PMP (IT Management Consultant)

Hyderabad (TS), India