Notes11
From UG
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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.
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
