Scaling up the software development process, a case study highlighting the complexities of large team software development

Abstract: Diamond Light Source is the UK's National Synchrotron Facility and as such provides access to world class experimental services for UK and international researchers. As a user facility, that is one that focuses on providing a good user experience to our varied visitors, Diamond invests heavily in software infrastructure and staff. Over 100 members of the 600 strong workforce consider software development as a significant tool to help them achieve their primary role. These staff work on a diverse number of different software packages, providing support for installation and configuration, maintenance and bug fixing, as well as additional research and development of software when required. This talk focuses on one of the software projects undertaken to unify and improve the user experience of several experiments. The "mapping project" is a large 2 year, multi group project targeting the collection and processing experiments which involve scanning an X-ray beam over a sample and building up an image of that sample, similar to the way that google maps bring together small pieces of information to produce a full map of the world. The project itself is divided into several work packages, ranging from teams of one to 5 or 6 in size, with varying levels of time commitment to the project. This paper aims to explore one of these work packages as a case study, highlighting the experiences of the project team, the methodologies employed, their outcomes, and the lessons learnt from the experience.