Is managing and controlling projects valuable?
Tom DeMarco is one of my favorite software publication authors. He still continues to blow my mind ten years after reading PeopleWare. Here's a short article by him that will challenge traditional thinking on project management.
It's certainly confronting to me, I often say 'the projects should pay for themselves'. The message here is the project should pay for itself many times over or why are you doing it?
I think this theory works for quantam-leap style projects, where a new product or revolutionary idea is marketable, or moves us on in software evolution. But what about day to day business software? So many changes I see are tiny incremental improvements that support a business, or make a user's life so much easier. Should we really abandon these changes if the gains are marginal?
It's a great thought provoking article, it certainly is food for thought when contemplating multi-million dollar green field builds.
It's certainly confronting to me, I often say 'the projects should pay for themselves'. The message here is the project should pay for itself many times over or why are you doing it?
I think this theory works for quantam-leap style projects, where a new product or revolutionary idea is marketable, or moves us on in software evolution. But what about day to day business software? So many changes I see are tiny incremental improvements that support a business, or make a user's life so much easier. Should we really abandon these changes if the gains are marginal?
It's a great thought provoking article, it certainly is food for thought when contemplating multi-million dollar green field builds.