Software Project Management

CHAPTER4Behind the Lines: Attribute Analyses

You sit back in your chair and breathe a sigh of relief. You’ve just received an email from the build master announcing the start of the build for the test team. Yesterday you weren’t sure you’d make the testing milestone on time. When the development team found two new defects in the communications module late in the afternoon, no one knew how severe the problems were. But the developers worked into the night and fixed both bugs, and the development team is going out for beer and pizza to celebrate a job well done. You’re thinking you might join them—after all, your project is back on schedule.

But for how long?

Project milestones are a somewhat arbitrary measure of completion in any project, but ...