Do you run a Web Developement Team?

Hey guys , I'm stuck in a situation where my developer tasks have taken a shift and i now need to run a Web Team.[ something I'm sure we all want to do one day] The trick comes in with the team has only got experience in ASP and the company wants to move to PHP. And being the only one with PHP experience Ive been given the tasks on leading the team to this new level. The reason why I'm posting this kind of post is because i want to know your opinion on development tools like GForge vs Source Forge enterprise... SVN and any other tools i might want to look into in helping this move.

I was given this brief and want to know what you guys think - to me its a bit vague and gives a wide variety of tasks to complete - is this reasonable in a web team? what other tasks should i add to it or remove some items.

Quote:

We will be sending the developers on a training course soon so skills will be there, its getting support from software like Gforge that's hard, we have problems installing the package. And we are also only aloud to use SUSE Linux.

I want to know any issues you might have come into when you were given a similer task or what you would do given this task.

Thanks For your help in this matter.

I cant comment on much except for version control.

I user MS Sourcesafe at work, Subversion at home and have breifly used CVS. I prefer Subversion. For my software projects at home I use http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ becuase its so easy (in windows) and eSVN in UNIX.

Hey,

What is your company currently using for design? Is it a .NET warehouse? Meaning that you have so many copies to Visual Studio you want to throw up or are we talking your coders are still on a hand code basis?

That will determine if your guys can make a good jump or not. If they are hand coders then they will have no problem learning how to use some different syntax to do what they do. I would look into something like Zend Enterprise or something like that. That way your people can have shared projects and such.

Also about your roles,
You might want to tone down the language a bit. Or least give them one with toned down language. Yes it's a fundamental shift, however if you present it like you are doing it is going to give a signal that you have to get the managers approval for anything they are doing. People are resistant to change anyway, so why put a wodden leg on them and expect them to run a mile? It just doesn't make sense. I would hand that copy into the "uppers" but keep a different one to the lowers. Also sign each and everyone of them up for a conference. That will help them tremendously. They can see how they can better themselves.

Personally I had 14 programmers accross the US and Canada. What we did is have Project running and all projects were handled via that system. That way it will ENSURE that everyone is on task. It jsut makes things easier. I also was in charge of everyone of them, and if you don't keep your head on straight it can overwhelm you quickly (hell I was only 18 when I was the boss).

Next advice I can give you is that you yes YOU take charge and step up to the "uppers". Don't expect them to step up to the plate and battle their way through learning a new system and be demanded to learn as they go along. They are going to be slower, they are goign to make mistakes, but the important thing is that you take the punches. If you have them fight their own battles it will make mad programmers.

I am currently in a position where I have to fight all my own battles with Clients, Managers, ect. I have to get all the content myself, and if it's not done on time I get a "talking to". Step up like a good manager should and take the heat.

That's really my advice right now about that,
Chad