The Joel Test does not test how good a team is. It tests how how well your team adheres to the Joel Test.

Here's a better test of how good your team is. I call it the GrandmasterB test. It has one question.

1) Is the software you write any good?

Its irrelevant to me whether you 'hallway test' or not, or what source control you have, or what your build process is (if there is one - not every lanugage has them). The true measure of a team is the quality of the software they create.

Basically, you could follow every single step of the Joel Test, and still end up with crap code and products that never ship. For example, source control does not magically make one a better coder, it makes code easier to manage. And having the latest Visual Studio doesnt mean your app will work better than if it was written with VS2005.

The Joel Test does not test how good a team is. It tests how well your team adheres to the Joel Test.

Here's a better test of how good your team is. I call it the GrandmasterB test. It has one question.

1) Is the software you write any good?

It's irrelevant to me whether you 'hallway test' or not, or what source control you have, or what your build process is (if there is one - not every lanugage has them). The true measure of a team is the quality of the software they create.

Basically, you could follow every single step of the Joel Test, and still end up with crap code and products that never ship. For example, source control does not magically make one a better coder; it makes code easier to manage. And having the latest version of Visual Studio doesn't mean your application will work better than if it was written with Visual Studio 2005.