It’s pretty rare for a software development project to go perfectly. In fact, although developers tend to have eternal faith that the next project will succeed completely according to plan, I can’t think of a single project that I’ve been involved with over the past 25 years that went off without a hitch. Dealing with bugs, sudden requirements changes, hardware and software that break down mid-project, unexpected personnel turnover, baffling interactions between components, malevolent servers, and incompetent subcontractors seem to be the order of the day. The question is not so much whether you’ll get hit with something unexpected, as how you’ll deal with it - and what you can learn from it for the next project.
The difference between average programmers and excellent developers is not a matter of knowing the latest language or buzzword-laden technique. Rather, it can boil down to something as simple as not making the same mistakes over and over again. Fortunately, there’s a powerful tool that any developer can use to help learn from the past: the project postmortem.
Star in your very own CSI at: http://journyx.com/rss/redir/developer-postmortem.html