Computer Canada Feature Article on Employees as Assets

The April 20th edition of Computer Canada had a feature article on (generally) the asset value that employees bring to a company. I mention this because, as it turns out, I'm quoted in the article. I believe that documentation is not the solution to the knowledge leakage problem discussed in the article. Developers don't like documentation, so the trick is to keep code clean and easy to read. Standards are important. Unit tests are important (they document the assumptions made by the developer). Enforcing both standards and appropriate levels of unit testing would, quite naturally, be even more important.

This combination is a significant benefit (albeit a soft one) that a company can accrue by using tools such as Team Foundation Server. Imposing process on software development efforts can be challenging, however. The metaphor that a development team is like a herd of cats is frequently quite accurate. Getting them to buy into the process is very important to it's success. But a well planned implementation that takes into consideration appropriate levels of training along with a process that mirrors the current situation can greatly help a company achieve it's goal with respect to securing application knowledge.