How to adapt when taking over project
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Hi there, I am sure professionals in the Software Development community have come across this scenario in their careers. I am about to be assigned to work on an existing project that my team mate worked on. However he is being moved to work on another project. One of my team members who worked on this project has left. So as you can see there is only one person left on how this piece of software is suppose to work. I am overwhelmed/nervous because my knowledge on the project is very limited and the deadline for this is short. This individual has knowledge on the technical aspects of the project and the business requirements/process. He has 20 years experience in software development. We have a tester assigned to the project but the tester only has knowledge about the business requirements not the nitty-gritty stuff. I appreciate if someone can provide me with advice/general tips on how to become better at adapting to new projects, learning about the project and implementing features, fixing bugs, what to do, what not to do.
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Hi there, I am sure professionals in the Software Development community have come across this scenario in their careers. I am about to be assigned to work on an existing project that my team mate worked on. However he is being moved to work on another project. One of my team members who worked on this project has left. So as you can see there is only one person left on how this piece of software is suppose to work. I am overwhelmed/nervous because my knowledge on the project is very limited and the deadline for this is short. This individual has knowledge on the technical aspects of the project and the business requirements/process. He has 20 years experience in software development. We have a tester assigned to the project but the tester only has knowledge about the business requirements not the nitty-gritty stuff. I appreciate if someone can provide me with advice/general tips on how to become better at adapting to new projects, learning about the project and implementing features, fixing bugs, what to do, what not to do.
Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this, as it depends on so many unknowns: the complexity of the application, the programming language, the rules and processes, your knowledge and experience, etc. I have had to do this a number of times in my career, and the support I received varied from very good to non-existent. If you have access to the original developer then you should be able to ask for help from time to time. As it is you need to spend as much time as possible studying the code and (hopefully) the documentation, to get familiar with the overall design and flow of the application. One of the things I sometimes did, was to take a copy of the project and do mock changes and builds for my own testing, just to see what happened in certain situations. Ultimately the only real way to do it is by practice, practice, practice.
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Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this, as it depends on so many unknowns: the complexity of the application, the programming language, the rules and processes, your knowledge and experience, etc. I have had to do this a number of times in my career, and the support I received varied from very good to non-existent. If you have access to the original developer then you should be able to ask for help from time to time. As it is you need to spend as much time as possible studying the code and (hopefully) the documentation, to get familiar with the overall design and flow of the application. One of the things I sometimes did, was to take a copy of the project and do mock changes and builds for my own testing, just to see what happened in certain situations. Ultimately the only real way to do it is by practice, practice, practice.