A lot of good points here, so I'll try not to be redunant. A lot of the best practices you have listed are longer-term investments and culture changes. If you j

A lot of good points here, so I'll try not to be redunant. A lot of the best practices you have listed are longer-term investments and culture changes. If you just need to ship a project, then you and your team will need to figure out how to make that happen, even if its full of ugly hacks. After its shipped, then you'll have more leeway to start fixing bugs one at a time. It also sounds like there's a huge political element here too, so of course be aware of that. Definitely don't try to rock the boat too much at first until you understand specifics of what is wrong. Overprescribing can be demoralizing, and if the project still goes south then you're the one to be blamed, since it was your idea to "change things". Not to say you should do nothing, its a delicate balance, and one I would certainly struggle with myself. Best of luck.