Freek.dev

A deep dive on why projects always take longer and a framework to improve future estimation

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There are a many ways to organize software projects, each with their pros and cons. I’ll break down a few common methodologies, and share smarter ways of working that enable your team to remain flexible.

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Playing software development on Nightmare difficulty

Read more [mikeveerman.substack.com]

Just as each workday is a little different, the same can be said about digital projects. Some digital projects are big and require large teams, months of collaboration, and brand new everything to bring them from beginning to end. So what’s a project manager to do?

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Jacob Kaplan-Moss shares the technique he uses when he needs to develop a project timeline.

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There's no shame in stopping a project if it turns out it isn't worthwhile to continue working on it.

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Project failures is a WordPress blog with horror stories of project that have terribly gone wrong. I recently stumbled across this particularly juicy story.

A few years ago, I was hired to work as a consultant on a software project for a large French tech company. What I have witnessed there is beyond everything I could possibly have imagined in terms of software engineering. Far more serious than just a lack of professional competence was the utmost contempt for human dignity which at some point made me compare the whole experience to (what I imagine can be) jail. What I relate here is a selected list of topics that should illustrate my point, but check out by yourself.

https://projectfailures.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/project-from-hell/

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Estimates are typically a necessary evil in software development. Unfortunately, people tend to assume that writing new software is like building a house or fixing a car, and that as such the contractor or mechanic involved should be perfectly capable of providing a reliable estimate for the work to be done in advance of the customer approving the work. This is pretty attainable by building contractors and auto mechanics, who generally are working with known materials building known things in known ways. ... With custom software, however, a great deal of the system is being built from scratch, and usually how it’s put together, how it ultimately works, and what exactly it’s supposed to do when it’s done are all moving targets.

https://medium.com/@ardalis/the-5-laws-of-software-estimates-fd13af46000b#.94s2f42fz

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Konstantin Kudryashov shares some thoughts on the relation between predictability and innovation.

Every time I meet a client to discuss their new project plans, I encounter the same question: "I want my software to be unique and different. How much will it cost?” The problem is that unique products and true innovation are difficult to estimate, and even harder to accurately budget for. Helping a business find the balance between the innovation they need, and the predictability they want led me to create the Innovation Slider, a tool you can use to harmonise the split between innovation and predictability in software projects.

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