Death march presentation – outline

• Definition
• A project whose “project parameters” exceed the norm by at least 50 percent
• “Forced March” imposed upon relatively innocent victims, the outcome of which is usually a high casualty rate
• **death marches are the NORM, and everyone should expect to be involved in one
• Constraints imposed
• Not enough time allocated
• Schedule has been compressed to less than half the amount of time estimated by a rational estimating process
• Most common form of death march project
• Short staffed
• Staff has been reduced to less than half the number of people that would normally be assigned to a project of this size and scope.
• Why short staffed?
• Downsizing, reengineering, and other forms of staff reduction most common
• New tool that manager think will cut down staff, even though they aren’t trained to use it
• Low budget
• The budget and associated resources have been cut in half
• Why low budget?
• Downsizing
• Competitive bidding on a fixed-price contract
• Results in short staff, or inexperienced young programmers
• Increased technology
• Functionality, features, performance requirements, or other technical aspects of the project are twice what they would be under normal circumstances
• Doubling the functionality—i.e. available features—usually means doubling the amount of work

• Why people join them
• The risks are high, but so are the rewards
• Future advancement
• The “buzz” of working with intensely committed people
• **The naiveté and optimism of youth
• The alternative is unemployment
• The alternative is bankruptcy
• Opportunity to escape the “normal” bureaucracy
• Corporate bureaucracy can stifle productivity and introduce unnecessary delays
• Some people always sign up for death march to escape bureaucracy
• Revenge
• The “Mt Everest” syndrome

• Why they occur
• Politics, politics, politics
• Naïve promises made by management
• Naïve optimism of youth
• “start-up” mentality of fledgling companies
• “Marine Corps” mentality
• Intense competition caused by globalization of market
• Intense competition caused by appearance of new tech
• Intense pressure caused by unexpected government regulations
• Unexpected or unplanned crises

• How to survive
• Triage
• Select between “must-do”, “should-do”, and “could-do” categories
• Get something—anything!—working quickly so it can be demonstrated
• Replacement manager
• Renegotiate deadline (not practical)
• Renegotiate the system requirements (better choice)
• Document now for future reference
• Not the best solution to current death march, but may prevent future ones
• Good long term solution
• Won’t repeat paths that did not work (hopefully)