Coding Standards

Correct Answer: Communicate the importance of the guidelines to the entire team and perform regular code reviews to ensure standards are being met.

As a project manager, the best approach to deal with a situation where the development team is not following coding standards is to communicate the importance of these guidelines to the team, and to perform regular code reviews to ensure that standards are being met. This is an active and positive way of addressing the problem and it helps improve the overall output of the team, while fostering consistency and standards. The option of leaving the team to correct themselves over time is not proactive and might end up costing more time and resources due to poor code quality. Fixing the code by yourself is not feasible in a team setting, as a project manager, your role is to guide and manage, not to perform individual tasks. Lastly, it's not a good practice to implement a penalty system for not following coding standards as it may create a fear-driven environment, which is not conducive to a healthy workplace atmosphere.

Correct Answer: Introduce a team-wide coding standard and refactor the code incrementally

Introducing a team-wide coding standard and refactoring incrementally ensures everyone follows the same conventions going forward while minimizing risks associated with refactoring. Refactoring the entire codebase immediately can introduce bugs, ignoring the issue leads to future confusion, and only changing a portion of the code or forcing overnight changes can cause conflicts and misunderstandings.

Correct Answer: Establish and enforce a code formatting standard across the team

Establishing a code formatting standard across the team makes the code consistent, clean, and readable for everyone. Mandating excessive comments, single-line functions, and personal code formatting preferences can make the code more difficult to read and maintain. Obfuscating the code or ignoring the issue won't solve the problem.