Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
mitigation fails. The message to project leaders is bring the real status—
but also bring your planned solutions.
For Senior Managers there is also an important related message:
LESSON 9
Don't shoot the messenger. No one likes to be beaten up for telling the truth
and doing his or her job.
Why Did We Miss Our Real Schedule Assessment by So Much on
DART?
I believe the reason was that we all wanted to believe we could do this job in
six months. The team was starting to believe it, and I didn't want to be the
bad guy and slow momentum and burst the bubble. Therefore—consciously
or unconsciously—I did not want to take the time to look at those two sub-
systems on the Product Backlog. It was easier to just keep believing our
original assessment.
If I had changed Al's priorities to spend a little time on this analysis earlier, I
knew our immediate milestone would have been jeopardized. Therefore, I
didn't assign the proper priority tasks to do the analysis we needed to do
when we needed to do it.
LESSON 10
When using Agile techniques, one must constantly reassess the backlog of
work and reprioritize that work to make sure you are working the critical
issues and reducing risk.
To m D e m a rc o a n d Ti m L i s t e r w ro t e a r i s k m a n a g e m e n t b o o k i n 2 0 0 3 e n t i t l e d ,
Waltzing with Bears
[31]. There is a quote on the back cover of the topic I now
realize I fell victim to on DART.
Demarco/Lister LESSON 11
“By ignoring the threat of negative outcomes—in the name of positive think-
ing or a can-do attitude—software managers drive their organizations into
the ground.”
