CDH Instructional Technology Programmers Group
By Yusuf Bhabhrawala
Moving from ad-hoc programming towards structured execution of small and large instructional technology projects the CDH Instructional Technology Programmers Group (CDH-ITP) has taken many baby steps in that direction over the past few months. These revolve around developing a software development / project execution life cycle and follows simple steps of planning, doing, testing and delivering Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) products.
To start with we successfully implemented a project tracking system so that projects can be planned and individual tasks allocated, tracked and closed to completion. This system called CDH Project Tracker has been in use since many months now and other managers within CDH have started using the same. This sure has simplified Kathy’s work and may be complicated Joseph’s a bit.
Starting with Hypermedia Berlin all projects within CDH ITP are being moved onto subversion configuration management system. The programmer team has quickly learned how to use subversion and they are starting to like it, I guess. Network services group, especially Denise, has been of great help in setting this system up and running.
A defect tracker system is being tested and piloted which will be used to track application defects and help quantify and thus improve quality of delivered products.
The process to call for projects is being improved to bring clarity about the deliverables that should be expected within each project that is accepted by CDH for the academic year. This will help improve communication and bring some structure to the chaos of software development and maintenance projects.
Overall the last academic year has been an interesting one. The current year will see these processes mature and place CDH in a position to take up bigger and better challenges in instructional technology projects.
