Git for Teams

Chapter 4. Workflows That Work

I love working with teams of people to hash out a plan of action—the more sticky notes and whiteboards the better. Throughout the process, there may be a bit of arguing, and some compromises made, but eventually you get to a point where people can agree on a basic process. Everyone gets back to their desks, clear about the direction they need to go in and suddenly, one by one, people start asking, “But how do I start?” The more cues you can give your team to get working, the more they can focus on the hard bits. Version control should never be the hard part.

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to create step-by-step documentation covering:

• Basic workflow

• Integration branches

• Release schedules

• Post-launch hotfixes

This chapter is essentially a set of abstracted case studies on how I have effectively used Git while working in teams. You will notice my strong preference for Agile methodologies, in particular Scrum, in this chapter. This process for collaboration works well with the popular workflow model, GitFlow. If you are already very familiar with GitFlow, you should still read the first section in this chapter on establishing and documenting your team’s procedures.

Evolving Workflows

In Chapter 2, you learned about governance models, and in Chapter 3, you learned about branching strategies. The way we work together through Git can get quite complicated very quickly, and the greater the complexity, the harder it is to remember ...