"The first thing that probably should be done is to establish everyones CVs/abilties and where they stand on the project hierarcy..."

And then turn it on its head. Make the managers coders and the coders managers.

... I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member, as Groucho said.

Seriously though, the way to learn is to break something and then get it working again. I agree entirely with the need to establish the requirements spec first.

muppetBoy if you sign up then it probably doubles the UK contingent - which can't be a bad thing. Pete