[abiglan]

Look at the Wikipedia article for Scrum (development). It outlines this approach reasonably well, and is "easy" to implement (e.g. the developers will not reject this as "over process") Be agressive in terms of commitments (making and missing) and hold to the fixed timebox. I -highly- recommend a 1 or 2 week timebox (-not- 30 days) as it forces more decomposition and only has people commiting to what they really know. Do the demos. Focus on vertical slices of functionality (e.g. don't just build the breadth of the UI component, take a single button and get it working down to the DB (for example)) -force- the developers to use a CM system and as part of the retrospectives, review checkins/branching, etc. This can evaporate after you are convinced that they are using a CM system (a month or two?) ask about unit tests (even if you know little about software) if you sense BS, then you have a real problem. If they are developing UT's as you go. This is a good sign. Your hired tester should be able to review unit test coverage breadth with you (plural). hth