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 arent 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 functionalityi.e. available featuresusually 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
somethinganything!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
- Wont
repeat paths that did not work (hopefully)