FDD for Small Teams
One of the main criticisms of agile methodologies is that they don't scale up. For Web development, it's often more important to see if a methodology can scale down and still retain its advantages. It's understood that the impact of any methodology will decrease as the team size drops, and FDD is no different. However, I have been able to successfully apply FDD to small teams and projects, for example, a project that used 4 staff members (a project manager, developer, and designer) 3 weeks to complete. FDD can scale down and still provide value to the Web development process. The two aspects of FDD that are of most value in small projects are:
1. defining the project in features 2. tracking the project by features
This seems very simplistic, but it's that simplicity that makes FDD so effective. Fail to define the project up-front as features, and chances are that the client and team will be on a different page from day one. Usually, this problem will only reveal itself once work is delivered. For small projects, correcting such errors is not a big task, however, a few days' extra work on a small project can mean a considerable percentage of extra work, and can quickly eat into the profit margin. Like most things in life, getting started on the right foot is the best way to make Web projects work out well. Using the simple technique of defining the project in features using the client's language will make a big difference to small and large projects alike.