From: "Roger Scudder" 

-----Original Message-----
From: c-bounces{at}snippets.org [mailto:c-bounces{at}snippets.org] On Behalf
Of Bruce D. Wedding
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 1:40 AM To: c{at}snippets.org
Subject: [C] Threadjack II: Schedules and deadlines

> "I love deadlines, especially the sound they make as they go swishing
by." Douglas Adams

> JG >> "I complete roughly 75% of my major software projects
on time."

> That in itself is very impressive.  I'm guessing you write small
programs?

In my limited experience as a staff programmer I have had the opportunity
to work on one non-trivial project of significant size.  It was estimated
that the project would require 6 months for two C programmers and two VB
programmers to complete.  The project ran over and ultimately failed,
partly because it was late and partly because the niche it was designed to
serve had become all but non-existent.

During the time I worked on that project I saw a lot of things that I
believe contributed to its demise.  The most significant problem IMHO was
that the programmer who was in the role of designer did not have enough
experience to tackle the technical problems.  The suggestion was made that
a consultant be retained to help with the design, but this person managed
to convince the team that he was up to the challenge. Another thing that
that had a negative impact was personal ego.  One team member seemed to be
obsessed with making a name for himself by writing super tight super
efficient code.  The result was (as I had warned it would be) code that
suffered so badly from binding that it was near to impossible to maintain. 
This person ended up having to rewrite more than once.  Still another
problem was time lost because of people failing to properly document
changes or failing to document bug fixes. I could go on but I think you
probably get the idea.

Obviously this project started off on the wrong foot, but I am sure some
elements of it exist in many other projects to some degree.  My point is
that the methodology used won't make much difference if certain basic
requirements are not met.  A team consisting of people who posses
appropriate experience, who are able to show selfless dedication, and who
know when it is appropriate to consult with a domain expert, are going to
be successful regardless of the approach or technique used.


-Roger

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