One of the best time savers in a project is an elegant, simple-to-use framework for developers. Early in the project, find a programmer who is “switched-on” to create the framework, and then to architect the development process. This will help make the project efficient, even if they can't stay on for the project. The developer will have experience in keeping it simple, which is different from creating nifty, hard-to-use solutions.
A project for a large government organization had been designed by senior architects. The solution they created used all the latest technologies, but to add a single field to a single screen, the developer had to change twenty files. To add a new simple screen to the application took three weeks, and there were hundreds of screens. No wonder companies look to outsourcing for development these days!
Some basic changes were made to the build process, layers and core APIs – days were saved with every screen.
