On large teams it is very important that everyone understands and follow the same branching model/workflow.

Different branching stratergies are,

1. Feature branch based development
2. Trunk Based Development

Each one has its pros and cons. So over a period of time I have been following simple release based 3 branch model with trunk based development which worked fine for me.

Trunk based development with 3 branch workflow model

Challenges with following Feature branch based development on large distributed teams

1. Limited number of downstream environments (DEV, QAT, UAT, …) it is not possible to deploy all features changes for testing, showcase/demo purpose at a time.
2. With long lived feature branches, refactoring & merge issues are real challange. Developers starts giving up with refactoring as they are not sure when branch is going to merge.
3. Team to be at advance level of using Git version control with good hold on branching, merging techniques.

Slides

Slides are available here

Last modified on 2016-08-21