Your Code as a Crime Scene

Let’s Work in the Communication Business

I once joined a project that was doomed from the very beginning. The stakeholders wanted the project completed within a timeframe that was virtually impossible to meet. Of course, if you’ve spent some time in the software business, you know that’s standard practice. What made this case different was that the company had detailed data on an almost identical project. And they tried to game it.

The historical data indicated that the project would need at least a year, but this time they wanted it done in three months. That’s a quarter of the time. The stakeholders did realize that; their solution was to throw four times as many developers on the project. Easy math, right? There was just one slight problem: ...