The Outcome

The project documentation was not the only thing we automated. This project is a Java language project. Java includes a documentation generator that builds beautiful linked Web-based documentation directly from the Java source code. I think you can guess where I'm going here. We periodically update our Java-class documentation directly from the CVS archive, so when the code gets changed, the online documentation is brought up to date in minutes.

Creating a project undernet had a number of tangible benefits for us:

· The developers, managers, analysts, and users had almost real-time access to information about the project and its status.

· The shared documentation repository allowed all of us to be sure that we had up-to-date information and that there was no miscommunication because people were working from old designs.

· Having the documents up on a Web server meant we could give anyone the ability to read the project documents without having to give the ability to write or change them.

· Having the class documentation constantly updated from the code archive meant that developers were always working from documentation that matched the real state of the code. This drastically reduced the impact of changes on the development process.

· Keeping the CVS archive on one of our master servers allowed all of this documentation and code, scattered around various development machines and workstations, to be backed up together. No single machine failure could have more than a tiny impact on the project.

An undernet is an inexpensive way to improve team performance.