Daily Wraps - Web Development Methodology

Daily Wraps

A Daily Wrap is a daily meeting with your team. It's a common task among agile processes. For example, in the Scrum framework it's called the Daily Scrum or Daily Stand Up Meeting.

In this short meeting, each person states what they did the previous day and what they plan to do today. The goals for this meeting are to:

• make sure no-one is falling behind
• make sure everyone knows what the rest of the team is working on
• ensure that any barriers or problems are raised and overcome quickly
• help foster collaboration within the team

From a project management perspective, the Wrap is an extremely effective tool to keep developers on track. When people promise to do something, and they know that tomorrow, they'll be asked in front of others whether it has been done, accountability results. The Wrap certainly makes team members think twice about what they promise, and about not following through! Also, the Wrap has a strong social aspect, which makes a huge difference to team work.

Progress Reports

The key here is to provide the client with progress updates on a weekly basis. There are many reasons for this, the first of which is to provide the discipline necessary to allow the project manager to review the project on a high level. The progress report doesn't need to be complex or comprehensive; it simply needs to state what has been done and if there are any issues that need to be resolved. I use the following template, which has proven to be very effective.

Achievements

What has been completed in the past week? This section helps to generate a sense of progress and satisfaction.

Dependencies

This technique is valuable in helping get things done. Often, the dependency is something the client has to deliver. By putting this down in writing, you make clear who is responsible for delays.

Assumptions

I can't stress enough how important it is to clearly state any assumptions you've made. If they're not stated openly, they can often cause major issues. For example, a developer may assume that data provided will be in a tabular, delimited format that is easy to import; the client may deliver it as a Word file, or worse: in a graphic format such as Quark or Pagemaker. Document all assumptions!

Issues

Every project has issues, which need to be captured in a written issue report.

Resolutions

Hopefully, as the project progresses, the issues that are raised are resolved. It's good form to capture those resolutions so that, should questions be asked down the track, you can always go back to the resolution noted on the progress report. In particular, this helps with clients who have a habit of changing their minds.

Project Website

This is a large part of all FDD projects and, in those projects, is called the KMS (Knowledge Management System). All information for the project -- all documentation, meeting notes, progress reports and so on -- should be captured in an online location that both the project team and client can access at anytime. This helps to ensure consistency by placing all information in a central repository.