Scheduling Games
Johanna Rothman has written a series of articles outlining some of the different scheduling games that development teams, project managers, and senior managers can play. These articles are an excellent read for anyone working on software development. They are definitely not just for project managers, although they are the ones who may benefit the most from these articles.
- Schedule Game #1: Schedule Chicken
- Schedule Game #2: 90% Done
- Schedule Game #3: Bring Me a Rock
- Schedule Game #4: Hope is Our Most Important Strategy
- Schedule Game #5: Queen of Denial
- Schedule Game #6: Sweep Under the Rug
- Schedule Game #7: Schedule Dream Time or Happy Date
- Schedule Game #8: Pants on Fire
- Schedule Game #9: Schedule == Commitment
- Schedule Game #10: We’ll Know Where We Are When We Get There
- Schedule Game #11: The Schedule Tool is Always Right
One thing I really liked about this series of posts is the constant recommendation for iterative development. Over and over again Johanna states that one of the solutions to these kinds of problems is iterative development where, at the end of each iteration, you release a full distributable build of the software. That way, each month you have something to show for the work you just finished and you have something to release. This is something that we are trying to implement where I work.