Notes11

From UG

Revision as of 15:02, 10 March 2011

About

March

itn1

New Strategic decision about "Holistic approach to IT and Web systems" approved by Simon

IT Support coordination will be a responsibility of "Product and Support team". 
It is a change because up until now they handled only CT2 support.

Disadvantages:

• additional responsibility that requires time
• lack of knowledge and experience
  • Tira is strongly qualified (BS in Comp Sci; Master in Info Management Systems; Network certification)
  • Tracie and Denise are beginners in IT

Advantages:

• increased value to Jaguar and Market = increased job security
• opportunity to gain new knowledge
• opportunity for Holistic approach (treating IT and CT2 as a whole, not fragmented); examples:
  • full vision and control over user/systems interactions and work flows
  • more services could be integrated into CT2/Cloud like web folders;
  • integration between CT2 and non CT2 system like Sugar and CT2

Transition agenda:

• phase 1 to be completed by the end of March
• Jaguar IT support knowledge exchange (KE)
  • 2a IT documentation: blog11, notes11, wiki IT category
  • 2b regular KEs
• Career plan for BAs:
  • agreement on responsibilities, goals and developmental stages
  • Formal IT training

itn3

Who is Who and Vendors list

This info is maintained in Vendors IT

itn4

IT documentation

All wikis related to IT are in Category:IT.

IT Support MAIN WIKI has up to date instructions on how to navigate this directory.

itn5

Desktops and users info (NY office)

It is managed xls attached to this Mantis: 0002803: ** Desktops and users info (NY office) **

Please add columns as required (MS office version, etc)

Every time document is changed new version is attached.

itn6

March April Support

To: Tira, Denise, Tracie, Andrei, Vlad, Dev Team

From: Alex

cc: Simon, Marc, Karen

Upper management brought to my attention that the number of complex and critical bugs is increasing (majority in Portal/TMS solution).

This makes experience of end users very painful and leads to a lot of frustration on the part of our clients.

We need to resolve this rapidly.

I believe that this happens due to the following reasons:

• growing list of new interrelated features increased system complexity significantly
• we are introducing new changes rapidly and without careful analysis (focus on quantity not quality) (Example: Portal/TMS system)
• most people on our team have only minimal understanding of CT2 components outside of components they "own" (Example: Tira - Client, Tracie -Acc, etc)
• not enough verbal communication between all members of the team particularly with developers
• non technical BAs and MOs make bad design decisions and force them into development
• SAa are doing often a poor job and creating analysis that has critical errors (Example: m2484 calculation of charges on invoice)
• MO-BA-SA-Dev-QA-BA chain is too long and too linear (no cross communication or group communication)

How to resolve this:

• focus on quality not quantity
  • do not rush adding many enhancements
  • add components after you selected best design and fully understand impact on the system

• focus on support:
  • every BA, SA, QA must understand 95-100% and be able to investigate EVERY module
  • all components should have complete, correct and readable documentation

• delegate systems design from BA&Support Team to Dev Team

• more verbal communication between all members of the team

• improved soft dev process (some highlights):
  • Architect to review all tasks at various stages of BA/SA/Dev
  • Architect to identify impact of each task and advise
  • low impact changes/projects could be documented by BAs; SAs are on as needed basis
  • high impact changes/projects must be run by technical staff (SA or/and Developer); BAs are on as needed basis
  • For low impact projects:
    • BA team must submit BR to Dev in Bundles and go over each with developers/Dev Manager (and SAs?) during Skype voice meeting and answer questions
  • For med/large and high impact projects:
    • BA team must submit RFPOP (Request For Proposal Or Prototype) to Dev team that contains ideally only high level requirements (problems or goals) not solution / design
    • BA team must also provide business background (glossary, existing biz processes, relevant industry practices, etc)
    • Dev team should in return communicate proposal or prototype as a document and during multiple Joint Design meetings
    • Joint Design sessions (Dev and Product teams) must be held early into BA stage, during Design and at the end

Timeline: March 9 - April 30

• BA/SA will put on hold new designs related to enhancements (example: Portal) and large new components (example: Rates DB)

• BA&Support team will be divided into 2 parts

• Team A Denise/Alex will attempt to resolve all TMS/Portal issues
  • create a list of problems, find best solutions, discuss with developers, make decision and submit into coding
  • document things
  • help Misha/Sasha/Kostya? to learn business side of Arden Dom Trucking so that they themselves can create designs
  • have Joint voice design sessions with Mauricio and Misha
  • Tira on as needed basis to explain Portal functionality

• Team B Tira/Tracie/Andrei/Vlad/TSI
  • daily support for all CT2 non-TMS/Portal issues including IT (Coordinator: Tracie; escalate to Tira/Andrei; Vlad/TSI/developers as needed)
  • every person of this team must understand 95-100% and be able to investigate EVERY module
  • create User Guides and CATs (Concepts And Terminology) for all components (Coordinator: Tira, lead by example please!)
  • some low impact or small size tasks might be assigned by Architect this month to this team
  • Airstatus/EU Adv notice (Tira/Tracie to continue for now but lets discuss - I have idea how to simplify mapping: send all data in XML! and ask Descartes to extract what they need)

• Team C Dev Team
  • maximum attention to fixing Portal/TMS and other bugs
  • practice improved soft dev process (skype voice meetings, submitting proposals/prototypes, etc)
  • learn about Logistics and Systems (books, online, CATs created by BAs, Descartes manuals, etc) so that they can create solutions based on requirements (new soft dev process)
  • Continue development for tasks already in DevEst/Dev