Boston spin conference death march yourdon

Death March Projects
in today’s
Hard Times
Edward Yourdon
email: ed@yourdon.com
blog: www.yourdonreport.com

Boston SPIN conference
March 16, 2010
Published under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)

Publication Details, and General Disclaimer
This presentation is an open-content collaborative document. Anyone with an Internet connection and World
Wide Web browser may view and/or alter its content -- for better or worse. Please be advised that while the
material in this presentation has been reviewed by Ed Yourdon ("Ed"); the theories and business practices
expressed by the document are not necessarily his.

This isn't to say you won't find valuable and accurate information herein; however, Ed cannot summarily
guarantee the validity of this document. The content of any given page may recently have been changed,
dumbed-down, or other wise edited by someone whose opinion does not correspond to Ed’s original material (or
any subsequent drafts).

Neither Ed, nor any of the contributors, collaborators, nor anyone else connected with this document, can in
any way whatsoever be held responsible for the appearance of any inaccurate information, or for your use of
the information contained in or linked from this document.

You are being granted a limited license to copy anything from this document; it does not create or imply any
contractual or extra-contractual liability on the part of Ed, nor any of the contributors, collaborators, or
viewers of this material.

There is no agreement or understanding bet ween you and Ed regarding your use or modification of this
information beyond the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL); neither is Ed responsible should someone
change, edit, modify, or remove any information that you may post on this document.

Any of the trademarks, ser vice marks, collective marks, design rights, personality rights, or similar rights that
are mentioned, used, or cited in this document are the property of their respective owners. Their use here does
not imply that you may use them for any purpose other than for the same or similar informational use -- as
recognized under the GFDL licensing scheme. Unless other wise stated, Ed and this document are neither
endorsed by nor affiliated with any of the holders of any such rights; as such, Ed cannot grant any rights to use
any other wise protected materials. Your use of any such or similar incorporated property is at your own risk.

Published under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) 2

Agenda
Introduction and quick summary
Project Politics
Project Negotiations
Peopleware Issues
Soft ware processes
Monitoring and Controlling Progress
Languages, Tools, and Technology


Two kinds of death-
march project

Defensive
Offensive


“Defensive” death-march
“Give me an estimate for
the XYZ system.
I think it will take…
6 months
5 people
$5,000,000
I need the estimate in one
hour, for my meeting with
the budget committee.”

Your assessment
“I think it will take…
12 months
10 people
$10,000,000
…but I really need more
time for a careful
estimate!”

Offensive death-march project

7

Indicators of new age of
death-march projects
Overall indicators
Stock market, real-estate prices, GDP decline, etc.
Drop in consumer spending, decline in consumer confidence

How long will it last?
Hard to imagine that 2010 will be anything better than “flat”
Recent economic reports suggest worst may be over, but recovery may be
weak and slow for years to come

Impact on IT: depends on what kind of company
Banks, financial institutions
Government, public-sector organizations
Manufacturing, consumer-oriented
Startup companies that depend on VC funding

Supply vs. demand
Demand for new death-march projects
Probably LOTS of “defensive” death-march projects to cut costs, etc.
Probably FEWER “offensive” death-march projects, except in companies where
it’s deeply ingrained in the culture (e.g., Apple’s iPad initiative)

Supply of participants for new death-march proj
Cynicism/skepticism much greater than in pre-2008 period
Many people have no choice/alternative — it’s not a question of volunteering
Perceived inevitability of outsourcing may cause some IT professionals to
think that participation in death-march project won’t save them anyway

Generational factor
Recent CS/SE graduates may abandon IT careers if they can’t get a job within
a year or so after graduating
Some recent graduates abandoning ALL “professional” careers, taking low-
pressure jobs and shifting their priorities elsewhere.

Impact of new death-march projects?
Faster?
Unlikely - indeed, things might slow down because of “decision delays”

Barry Boehm: “Projects finish late because they start late!”

Cheaper!!
Spending freeze on capital items, upgrades, new tools, etc.

Increases pressure on open source, SAAS, Web 2.0, etc.

Also, more outsourcing -- but maybe outsourcing to Kansas instead of India

Smaller budgets means more inexpensive, junior-level developers

Fewer people!
Smaller teams

Less admin support

More “fragmented” teams, with people working on multiple projects

Agenda
Introduction and quick summary
Project Politics - more “ugly” projects
Project Negotiations - more unilateral, less
compromising
Peopleware Issues - more important, but
people will feel they have fewer options
Monitoring and Controlling Progress - yes
Languages, Tools, and Technology -
collaboration tools (Twitter, etc.)
Soft ware Processes — let’s discuss...

Project Politics: determining the
h Basic Nature of the Project
a
p mission
p kamikaze
impossible
i
n
e suicide “Ugly”
s
s
chances of success


One comment re peopleware

It doesn’t have to cost a
lot of money to make
people feel good about
their participation in a
team...
13

Monitoring & controlling progress

Traditional, common-sense
ideas — e.g., the “nightly
build” — still make a lot of
sense in today’s “hard-times”
death-march projects

14

Process Issues
“Good Enough” soft ware
Economic justification of PI
initiatives
Agile processes
Process impact of “junior-heavy”
teams

Good-Enough Processes
“Zero defect” is the enemy of “good enough” — except in situations
that people perceive to be safety-critical (today’s soft ware(?)
example: Toyota)
Emphasis on “good-enough” will increase, especially in consumer-
oriented web applications
Lots of technical issues - e.g., caching, queues, graceful degradation
when ser vers fail
But what about tolerance for bugs and security flaws? Do we
really accept Microsoft’s idea of a “hacker tax”?
Google has created a “beta-forever” culture
Consumers show amazing tolerance for barely-good-enough when
it’s free (Google mail, Twitter, etc.)
Emphasize risk-based testing to minimize TOTAL failures
Remember consumers will be grumpy, pissed-off, fickle

Economic justification
of PI initiatives
Process improvement is much harder to sell as a
“philosophy” in bad times
Imagine arguing in favor of investing in CMMI
when CIO has just been told to reduce IT budget by
25% in 2010
Justification will have to be based on credible ROI
or risk-based argument
Realistically, ROI is likely to be based on multi-
year time-horizon ... politically dangerous

Agile Processes
Obviously!
Cost-cutting culture will probably favor “light”
processes, with less bureaucracy, formality
But increased pressure on end-users will
jeopardize “back-fill” and other user-
participatory activities in development projects
In fact, overall economic pressures will push
senior management to find excuses to cancel
expensive development projects

Process Impact of
“junior-heavy” teams
Less-experienced people need a more formal, rigorous,
disciplined process
“Ugly” (high-pressure, heavy overtime) death-march
projects will lead to grumpy, demoralized junior staffers
... and while they’ll keep working (because they can’t vote
with their feet)
... they’ll resist efforts to formalize processes.
You can threaten to fire them if they refuse process rules...
... but there’s a real risk of quiet process-related mutiny,
anarchy
Prediction: we’ll have a LOT of crappy systems to fix up 5-10
years from now

Conclusions
Most of these cycles last 2-3 years, and then
we’re back to good times
But people are like elephants: they never forget
when they’re treated badly, even if they have to
tolerate it for a while.
But this downturn could last longer than most of
the previous ones, and could alter the supply-
demand balance
We will get through it, but it may take a while...
But I’ll still be here when the good times return...

Boston spin conference death march yourdon

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

Similar a Boston spin conference death march yourdon

Similar a Boston spin conference death march yourdon (20)

Boston spin conference death march yourdon