- Planning to Plan
- Now You Know . . . and Knowing Is Half the Battle
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Now You Know . . . and Knowing Is Half the Battle
Planning how to set up your VOBs and ClearCase environment can seem like you're trying to peer into the future, because you need to predict the future of the product. But unlike the telephone fortune-tellers who make baseless recommendations on how to live your life, you need to start asking questions—and making some key decisions based on the answers you get. Many efforts start out as if they're relying on fortunetellers, but as you slowly start answering these questions, your project will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By properly planning things, you rely less on "predictions" and greatly reduce the risk.
Smart deployment is all about risk management—planning reduces risk. And properly planning for a strong source-code management system will roll over into other practices. With a strong set of tools and processes driving your development machine, you'll find your team planning their development efforts with more rigor and logic. The resulting products will be . . . well, better.
Think of it this way: when you were growing up, did you ever notice the difference between doing homework in a messy room versus one that was clean, from top to bottom? Clinical research shows that students in a clean and orderly environment excel over those in a messy environment. So how different is this from your work environment?
How clean is your room?