6 Ways To Improve Your Software Development Game

• By Sachin Agrawal
• 28-02-2020
• Software

How many times you feel like you are drowning in work with a lot of things to do? This is the prime reason that kills work motivation and makes you unhappy.

Thus, no matter if you are a junior or a senior software developer, it’s imperative to improve your software development skills timely. If you are a beginner, the best way is to simply concentrate by learning your language, software frameworks, different tools and gain experience with a lot of projects.

But, if you are an experienced software developer and want to ace your software development game, you should persistently try to find out the new ways to amend your code for readability, performance, and maintainability. Follow veteran software developers and ask them to share their best tips for being such an awesome coder.

Enhancing your work process doesn’t require major things like reading textbooks about new methodologies and more. You can improve your software development game by following these quick improvements.

1. Create a workflow

A workflow is a process that a company uses to work effectively. Generally, the tasks in software development go through multiple stages before being completed including planning, doing, reviewing, and deployment.

Workflows may help you streamline and automate redundant tasks. It also reduces room for errors and increases overall efficiency. You can also customize your workflow according to your needs. By creating a workflow, you can make quicker and smarter decisions.

2. Refine your backlog

Creating the backlog is easy, but it won't serve any purpose if you are not actively shaping it. Thus, it’s imperative to clean up your backlogs.

A polished product backlog helps you to focus on the most important things you need to do at the time, while not ignoring other, less critical tasks.

You can split your backlog according to the work priorities. A well-refined backlog acts as a crucial resource. It may help you in identifying what to do next for your product. Backlog management is important, thus manage it well.

3. Understand the meaning of “DONE”

“DONE” means the acceptance which ensures that if a task is truly DONE, it’s completed in terms of functionality and quality as well.

Few rules come under the definition of “DONE”:

• The feature is implemented properly
• Testing is fine
• Documentation is updated
• Reviewed by Quality Team
• Code is in the master branch
• Code is deployed well to production

As a developer, you should take care of all these rules before saying “DONE”.

4. Reduce Work in Progress (WIP)

What will happen, if you overload a system?

The output will decrease!

Similarly, multitasking affects the efficiency a lot. The more you multitask, the more time you will take to complete a particular task – it’s a mathematical fact.

So, what is the solution?

To start with, limit your tasks in progress and set up WIP limits to your workflow. Setting up limits does not mean that you can never start a task before finishing the previous one. It’s up to you only. Remember happy workers do better quality work. Thus, stop juggling and start doing!

5. Visualize Your Work

Do all your team members and upper management know the current status of the project you are working on?

If not, then you should visualize your good work.

Visualization is a great way to enhance your work performance. This helps in removing the communication gap among all the team members. Always, keep in mind that good information is attention-grabbing, and avoid clutter. Thus, always visualize your work!

6. Try Out Agile Development

Agile development is an alternative way that focuses on being an incremental and iterative process. It offers a lightweight framework that may help you to maintain focus and create a continually evolving technology landscape.

At once, you should try agile development.

Final Words

The software industry is evolving day by day!

Hence, as an app developer, you need to improve your software development game accordingly.