> I think it is this mindset of acknowledging that one /will/ run into
> problems, both self-made and external, and that time /must/ be reserved
> for such events accordingly, that is crucial for good project management.

Indeed. We have quite a good project management tool, that essentially 
takes out any "safety buffer" from individual tasks and makes it one big 
lump at the end. That way individual tasks can over-run or under-run, 
but the idea being on average it will be some pre-determined figure.

The problem is, once this is done in a realistic way and agreed by all 
actually doing the work, project management types come along and say the 
end date is too far away and make it sooner. So you end up spending the 
whole project with the engineers assuming they will miss the end date 
from the start and not really caring about it, and the project manager 
frantically trying to fiddle things around and cut corners to meet the 
date they agreed to. In the end everyone is shafted for "missing the 
deadline", as senior management types seem unaware of the cries from the 
engineers since the beginning of the project.

Post a reply to this message

On 19/08/2016 09:29 AM, scott wrote:
> The problem is, once this is done in a realistic way and agreed by all
> actually doing the work, project management types come along and say the
> end date is too far away and make it sooner.

And *this* is the root of all the problems. This idea that you can just 
"make it sooner" by writing a different date on a piece of paper. 
Because that isn't how the world works.

It takes time to do things. You can admit that it will take time, and 
plan accordingly. Or you can pretend that it won't take time, and 
pretend that it will be finished by date X. But it will *still* won't 
actually be finished until date Y, no matter what you write on that bit 
of paper.

The whole point of planning is to *predict* when the work will be done. 
You do a series of calculations to estimate how long it will take, so 
that everyone around you can plan for that. Artificially changing the 
carefully estimated prediction won't make the work happen any faster. :-P



I used to assume that this kind of brokenness only happens at the 
amateur company that *I* work for. Alarmingly, this appears to not be 
the case. This raises the question HOW DOES ANYTHING EVER WORK?! >_<

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

> And *this* is the root of all the problems. This idea that you can just
> "make it sooner" by writing a different date on a piece of paper.
> Because that isn't how the world works.
>
> It takes time to do things. You can admit that it will take time, and
> plan accordingly. Or you can pretend that it won't take time, and
> pretend that it will be finished by date X. But it will *still* won't
> actually be finished until date Y, no matter what you write on that bit
> of paper.
>
> The whole point of planning is to *predict* when the work will be done.
> You do a series of calculations to estimate how long it will take, so
> that everyone around you can plan for that. Artificially changing the
> carefully estimated prediction won't make the work happen any faster. :-P
>
> I used to assume that this kind of brokenness only happens at the
> amateur company that *I* work for. Alarmingly, this appears to not be
> the case. This raises the question HOW DOES ANYTHING EVER WORK?! >_<

Because the real Atlases of the world never shrug.
And the Boxers on Orwell's animal farm never stop working.

<political post>

And now you just need to extend that logic to politics and the magic markings
that politicians make on their magic paper to alter reality inside of their
magic lines.

Abracadabra!  We now have money out of thin air, can create prosperity by
astronomical taxing and spending, "create jobs", "raise the minimum wage",
declare that pi = 3.0, and stop people from stealing, killing, reading the wrong
things, thinking the wrong things, saying the wrong things, owning the wrong
items, associating with the wrong people, listening to the wrong music, eating
the wrong foods, looking at the wrong pictures, using the wrong medications,
worshiping the wrong cult leader, or do absolutely anything without their holy
permission.

Be thankful that not meeting the imaginary deadline doesn't land you in a little
concrete box.

</political post>

Post a reply to this message