Have you got any tips that we can apply to the Enigin team? If so, get in touch!

Enigin has used many different project management systems in our quest for simplicity, but every software-based solution has failed for different reasons; either they are too complex and require too much time updating, or they are not flexible enough for allow us to work the way that we want.

However, about 3 months ago we purchased a set of mini-whiteboards, and we haven’t looked back!

Every member of the Enigin R&D team has their own personal whiteboard on which they maintain a task list for the week. At the beginning of every week we sit down as a team and discuss the M.I.Ts (Most Important Tasks) and then we’re set for the week.

Sometimes software is NOT the answer for working together! Funny how life works out!

We have also attempted to use paper pads by writing on tasks and then enigin rip off pages when we’re completed them, but we prefer the whiteboard as it’s easy to wipe the slate clean.

More on Enigin project management coming over the next few months.

We believe that this is important because people work better when they are excited about their jobs and not snowed-under performing repetitive tasks.

There are many parts of a business which are ripe for automation, areas include:

• Customer marketing via automated email marketing
• Financial transactions using online payment gateways
• Document control using an online file versioning system
• Recurring Invoicing
• Business processes, specialist companies will build custom software to automate most of your internal business processes

Obviously every business is different and your automation list may include tasks which are specific to your industry. But whatever the mind-numbing job, there’s a way of automating it! Allowing you to free up valuable staff resources to spend on other areas of your business.

More on business automation soon, include some of the tricks of the trade that Enigin have learnt!

Here is a quick list of tools we use:

• Subversion – To store our codebase and keep track changes.
• BeanStalk – We use BeanStalk to help use deploy our software projects to the Enigin servers. This enables us to have a one-click-rollout system for our latest software changes.
• Text Editor / IDE – Personally I use Textmate for writing software, but others in the team use Zend Studio.
• Macs – All the R&D team (except 1) are on the Mac platform. We are big Apple fans!
• Server Density – We use Server Density to provide a monitoring platform for our servers. It sends us alarms at 3am when it wants our attention!

I will be writing about these tools in more details over the next few months.

“Who are you?” I hear you scream from your comfy computer chair! I’m the Software Director at Enigin plc. I am responsible for ensuring that our R&D team produce good software, software which helps our customers to manage their energy bills.

Unlike many companies, Enigin has an in-house R&D team and we are all dedicated to producing the best products and services that we possibly can.

This blog will contain my general thoughts on software development and best practices. I will also share with you some tips and tricks of the industry in order to enable YOU to apply these ideas to your software team.

Make it a good one!