project-management

What are your experiences regarding project planning and creating hour estimates for new projects? What is the approach you are using, and why has or has it not worked for you? Are there any best practices to take into account? Estimation Tasks The principles that I try to use (I don't always get the opportunity) are: Step-wise refinement 3 point estimates Risk analysis Step-wise refinement When estimating it's important to estimate at the right granularity and to continually break down and add tasks until you're confident in the estimates. Quite often, estimating highlights a lengthy,

I would like some practical guidance on when I should use a Domain Specific Language . I have found resources about advantages and disadvantages, but what kind of project would warrant its use? It seems like there is a big investment in time to create and maintain a DSL, so in what application space would I get a productivity return on my time investment? Edit: It seems the most common use of DSL is for file formats for persisting data state, what about using a DSL for program logic and structure(perhaps code generation)? When is this feasible? Edit #2 I am mainly asking about when is creating

I'm working in research and my bioinformatics work group needs a project management software for keeping track of multiple projects (Linux environment). Originally, we planned for using TRAC but then I got aware of REDMINE. Moreover, I read in some earlier posts from 2008 and 2009 that many projects had switched to Redmine. Right now, I cannot find any up-to-date or reliable comparison between both systems and thus cannot wage which one is better (maybe both are equally good). My question: Does anyone of you have recent experience in one or even both of these systems and can point out some

I'm curious as to what other people use for physical Kanban/Scrum boards in their companies. I appreciate that because of sensitive business information you may not be able to provide a photo of the board. I"m looking at to find out what does your board looks like , and how you organize user stories and tasks as they move through a typical sprint/iteration? Typically I've worked in a places that organize the board as follows with each User Story | Todo | In Progress | Ready for QA | Done | UC-001 | Domain Object, Service | DAO(Bob) | | | UC-002 | Payment UI Screen | | Payment Srv (Don)| | UC

My firm just got its first large-scale development project inquiry and I would like to use an Agile process. The client has a vision for the application but openly admits to having very few requirements and recognizes that we will have to charge by the hour. Because of this, I've all but sold him on an Agile approach. The problem is that he wants a figure to budget around. I've read a number of articles that pretty much advocate against giving up an estimate because the client will budget for that number and even as requirements change, the number in their head and in the books doesn't. I've

I'm fairly well read in the benefits and processes of Scrum. I get the ideas on the backlog, burndown charts, iterations, using user stories, and other various concepts of the Scrum "framework". With that said... I work for a web development firm that manages multiple projects at one time, with six team members that make up the "production team". How does Scrum work with having multiple projects? Do you still just schedule an iteration for a single project in a certain amount of time and the entire team works on it, and then you move on to the next project with a new iteration when that