Death March Projects in todays Hard Times Edward Yourdon email: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Published under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)

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

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Agenda

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

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Two kinds of death- march project

Defensive Offensive

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“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.”

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Your assessment

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

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Offensive death-march project

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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

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Supply vs. demand

Demand for new death-march projects

Probably LOTS of “ defensive” death-march projects to cut costs, etc. Probably FEWER “

• ffensive” 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.

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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

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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.) Software Processes — let’s discuss...

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Project Politics: determining the Basic Nature of the Project

chances of success

h a p p i n e s s

suicide mission impossible kamikaze “Ugly”

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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...

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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

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Process Issues

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

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Good-Enough Processes

“Zero defect” is the enemy of “ good enough” — except in situations that people perceive to be safety-critical (today’s software(?) example: Toyota) Emphasis on “ good-enough” will increase, especially in consumer-

• riented web applications

Lots of technical issues - e.g., caching, queues, graceful degradation when servers 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

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Economic justification

• f 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

• r risk-based argument

Realistically, ROI is likely to be based on multi- year time-horizon ... politically dangerous

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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

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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

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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...

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Published under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)

Death March Projects in today’s Hard Times

Edward Yourdon

email: ed@yourdon.com blog: www.yourdonreport.com

Boston SPIN conference March 16, 2010