The content of these meetings follows a very simple structure;

• What I accomplished yesterday
• What I plan to accomplish today
• What issues are blocking progress

Each person takes a turn to top line (short and sweet) their answers to the three questions above. It can be surprisingly hard to remember everything you did the previous day, but it’s a good way to get your head back into the projects you’re working on and defining where you’re at.

Stand-up meetings can be held anywhere, with only two strict requirements, everyone must stand up, and the meeting should last no longer than 10 minutes total. By standing up you’re more likely to keep everyone’s attention – they’re not sitting comfortably and there are no phones, computers screens and doodle pads to distract you. We hold these stand ups around the meeting table of our studio and in our case allow notepads, as often a single person may need to report on several projects, and it’s important to make sure we cover everything.

no distractions

The time limit imposed is not strictly regulated, but with a maximum of five standing at any one time we rarely go over time. But again this is in place to make sure that we only cover top level information and alert people to any blockers that may be currently holding up, or have the potential to hold up, a project. Anything that requires a more detailed discussion will be parked and taken up one to one after the meeting, or if it requires more than one of us we’ll schedule a time when all those involved can go over it together. This might sound a little like overkill, but it allows us to make sure we can get everyone who needs to be involved together, with enough time to prepare and source any required information for the conversation to be worthwhile, and at a time when it’s not going to impact on something else.

production team only

The standard practice is to only invite production staff to the stand-up meeting, as communication with the client team happens constantly though out the day. Without the client team there to ask additional questions, each person reports back what they know to be true without the meeting taking any unnecessary detours. After the stand-up has concluded, I can then filter back any updates that require it to the client team or hopefully put into action anything that may clear a reported blocker.

Since we started using the stand-up meeting format we’ve found there is an increase in project awareness throughout the company and without doubt we’ve improved efficiency. It has many benefits for us, as it gives everyone a chance to air problems quickly and easily, gives me peace of mind on where we’re at with our targets and means that any one person usually has enough knowledge to discuss a project and its current status if it’s needed. Most of all, everyone leaves knowing exactly what they’re doing, and has their head thinking about the right projects for the day ahead. And that can only be a good start to the day.

Git is a free & open source, distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Every Git clone is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full revision tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access or a central server. Branching and merging are fast and easy to do.

Source: http://git-scm.com/

So, what does this actually mean? Well basically it allows one or more developers to work on a project in parallel, without fear of overwriting, or deleting work. Git tracks any changes to code or files in the directories specified on initialisation and then via some simple terminal commands users can submit their changes or request others changes to the overall project – clever stuff!

Aside from that, it means that every developer, as well as the web server and a remote repository have a complete copy of all changes made since the project was created. This allows the user to roll back and check out versions of files even when the internet is being elusive, like on train or plane journeys etc. When you find some internets again you can push your changes to the central repo, which will in turn filter down to all clients as they request any changes.

Ok, so now, why are we moving to Git? Well that title is kind of misleading, 50% of us were already there. The senior members of our development team or ‘Bigger Boys’ have been using Git as a VCS (version control system) for a couple of years, it’s just front-end developers like myself and Thomas that have been letting the side down. We’ve both come from backgrounds where the need to work intensely on the same code is rare and we’ve always been vocal enough to shout about who’s working on what file when etc.

In lieu of moving to a full blown VCS we’re been working to networked drives on local production servers that are backed up hourly, nightly, weekly, monthly – and this process has worked for us for over two years.  However, as the team and projects get larger it has become increasingly more important that any member of the team can jump in and help at any point in a project without it becoming a big deal. With Git you simply clone the repository, update your local hosts and set up a copy of the database – and this entire process can be done in less than 10 minutes.

Two months into using Git, I’m by no means an expert, Dave is forever showing me new and exciting commands that confuse the hell out of me, but I’m really feeling the benefit of the move. After getting myself up to speed, I’m now teaching our new intern Adam (V2) who seems to be picking it really quickly too and is thankful for its benefits.

If you aren’t already doing so and you’re looking for a quick and easy VCS solution which works across all platforms (WIN, Mac, Linux); I can highly recommend rolling Git out, as it a damn fine piece of technology!

Further reading for those that are interested can be done here:
http://git-scm.com/documentation