Posted by Robert Merrill on March 2, 2010 under Estimation, Project Set-Up, Software-Intensive Businesses | 
Q: Why were they late for the meeting?
A: They didn’t leave soon enough.
But…they got stopped by a train, and they remembered that they needed to pick up a loaf of bread, and…they have a slow car!
Details like speed limits and the police aside, what do the car, and the bread, and the train have to do with it? The trip took 25 minutes, five of it spent waiting for the train, and five of it in the convenience store, and fifteen of it driving. They left 20 minutes before the meeting, and they were five minutes late.
Well, they didn’t plan on the train or the bread.
Do they ever plan on the train or the bread? Read more of this article »
Posted by Robert Merrill on October 26, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Once again, reality fails to conform to plan, even in the case of something seemingly similar to something done every year—the manufacture and distribution of influenza vaccine.
In “Swine Flu Vaccine Shortage: Why?” on NPR.org, we learn that late-in-the-process verification of actual yields, and a bottleneck at the packaging stage, have led to a late-in-the-lifecycle discovery that we don’t have nearly as much vaccine as we expected to have by now.
It will be interesting to watch the story unfold. Here are my predictions of what we will learn: Read more of this article »
Posted by Robert Merrill on February 6, 2009 under Agile Methods, Estimation |
With just a little bit of effort, the uncertainty in a project estimate drops rapidly. But there comes a point where getting even a little bit more accuracy takes a lot more work (yellow line) and there
“Real Agile teams don’t waste time on X.”
“You can’t deliver quality software without getting X right first.”
My favorite quote from fantasy writer and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis is this: “(The Devil) often sends errors into the world in pairs—pairs of opposites…He relies on your extra dislike of one to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors.”
A key principle of Agile software development (and much else in business besides) is that of “diminishing returns.” At some point, extra effort in the same direction, even on generally worthwhile activity, is no longer worth it.
I most often find myself talking about diminishing returns when it comes to cost and schedule estimation. “Robert,” someone comes to me, “I have an idea for some software that’s going to save us a million bucks. How long would it take to build it?” Read more of this article »