Your team doesn't follow the coding standards you or
<Superprogrammer> (who isn't working for your company anymore)
set up a long time ago?
Try
the inverse logic strategy: Write a 200-page document with any kind of
coding standards and guidelines. But here is the trick: Those standards
mustn't be the ones you want to enforce, rather the ones that you don't
want to be followed. Just don't tell that anyone. If everything works
as expected, your team will avoid your (false) coding standards and
therefore will use the standards you favor. :)
I've yet to see externally enforced coding standards to be followed by a team.
Jeremy D. Miller wrote in a
blog post:
"A
team is much more likely to follow a standard that they've built
themselves. Let the coding standard crow organically as you encounter
new needs."
I definately agree with this statement. And Jeremy has
another interesting posting about "guiding" software teams.