Software Best Practices

I was mulling this over yesterday and it occurred to me that while this is true it doesn't make sense that it should be true. Manager's used to be technical and have experienced the disconnect first hand yet once in management they do the same thing. This one might be more of a management social...

Absolutely and usually resources (people and budgets), the costs, are fixed. Occassionaly consultants are added to the team. That leaves schedule and functionality. The management teams need something to adjust and negotiate otherwise they can't really manage the project. One of the challenges and...

Yes. I had a VP of Engineering once that liked to say, "The business decides what's needed and Engineering says what it can deliver and when." Engineering would estimate, scope and define the phased releases to deliver the functionality. The CEO at the time agreed with this approach. The...

Another aspect of this is that often management and the customer hear the earliest date in the estimate range, while engineers are building to the middle or last estimate of the range. The heart of the matter could be that management is actually asking for a commitment too early and is uncomfortable...

Unknowable is a better choice of words. Although, this gets to the nitty grittys of when do you have enough requirements to move on. The sdlc choice has an impact too. An iterative approach to uncover requirements mitigates the risk of requirements changes downstream. I suspect that the inital estimate...

There is a disconnect between management and their programmers. In one research study of a project that failed to meet its estimates and was seen by its management as a failure, the technical participants saw it as the most successful project they had ever worked on.

Since estimates are so faulty, there is little reason to be concerned when software projects do not meet estimated targets. But everyone is concerned anyway.

Software estimates are rarely adjusted as the project proceeds. This those estimates done at the wrong time by the wrong people are usually not corrected.