Published Nov 6, 2003 by Prentice Hall.
The #1 guide to surviving "doomed" projects...Fully updated and expanded, with powerful new techniques!
At an alarming rate, companies continue to create death-march projects, repeatedly! What's worse is the amount of rational, intelligent people who sign up for a death-march projectsaeprojects whose schedules, estimations, budgets, and resources are so constrained or skewed that participants can hardly survive, much less succeed. In Death March, Second Edition, Ed Yourdon sheds new light on the reasons why companies spawn Death Marches and provides you with guidance to identify and survive death march projects.
This isn't a book about perfectly organized projects in "textbook" companies. It's about your project, in your company. But you won't just recognize your reality: you'll learn exactly what to do about it.
What is a Death March Project and Why Do They Happen?
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Categories of Death March Projects.
Why Do Death March Projects Happen?
Naive Promises Made by Marketing, Senior Executives, Naive Project Managers, and So on.
Naive Optimism Of Youth: “We Can Do It Over the Weekend”.
The “Startup” Mentality of Fledgling Entrepreneurial Companies.
The “Marine Corps” Mentality: Real Programmers Don't Need Sleep.
Intense Competition Caused by Globalization of Markets.
Intense Competition Caused by the Appearance of New Technologies.
Intense Pressure Caused by Unexpected Government Regulations.
Why Do People Participate in Death March Projects?
The Risks Are High, but So Are the Rewards.
The Naiveté and Optimism of Youth.
It's Required in Order to Be Considered for Future Advancement.
The Alternative Is Bankruptcy or Some Other Calamity.
It's an Opportunity to Escape the “Normal” Bureaucracy.
Identifying the Political Players in the Project.
Determining the Basic Nature of the Project.
Levels of Commitment by Project Participants.
Analyzing Key Issues that Lead to Political Disagreements.
What To Do When Negotiating Fails.
4. People in Death March Projects.
Loyalty, Commitment, Motivation, and Rewards.
Workplace Conditions for Death March Project.
The Importance OF Requirements Management.
SEI, ISO-9000 and Formal Versus Informal Processes.
Best Practices and Worst Practices.
6. The Dynamics of Processes.
Models of Software Development Processes.
An Example: Tarek Abdel-Hamid's Software Process Model.
7. Critical-Chain Scheduling and the Theory of Constraints.
What Organizational Behaviors are Dysfunctional?
How Can We Change Dysfunctional Organizational Behavior?
Life in a Rational World.
The Impact of Corporate Culture On Time Management.
Time Slippage from Stakeholder Disagreements.
Helping the Project Team Make Better Use of Time.
9. Managing and Controlling Progress.
Additional Ideas for Monitoring Progress: Milestone Reviews.
10. Death March Tools and Technology.
Risks of Choosing New Tools.
11. Simulators and “War Games”.
The Concept of War Games.