5 ms·

The most successful software manager I've worked with, in terms of timeliness, was the one who deconstructed the work the most before starting. What exactly was

The most successful software manager I've worked with, in terms of timeliness, was the one who deconstructed the work the most before starting. What exactly was going to be done, how confident were they in their estimate? Not confident? Break it down more. More detailed requirements, more detailed GUI mock up, More pre-design. Then, when confidence was high enough, by his judgement: who was going to do the work, and how did that work fit into the organization's schedule, including the testing, bug fix cycle needs, test equipment availability, and release. He was nearly always on time, and never acceded to the customer's desired delivery date unless he could meet it. I'm not saying this works in all environments, but for his case, it did.

mgoetzke 8y ago
Which is indeed successful. But this also takes time and sometimes sadly not allowed or deemed necessary. It also does not allow to respond to changes quickly unless a proper re-calculation is also done. Good technique for a lot of scenarios anyway.
snarf21 8y ago
This can surely work depending on organization. The problem is when the sales people need an estimate in two days or they don't get the contract. Then it is just a wild ass guess and the normal problems ensue. The reason that software is so hard to do in most cases is that you are making something that (by definition) has never been done before. Of course stuff is going to go bad. This is largely a corporate culture problem. In these cases, I want to have the sales people come to a weekly meeting and have them estimate when they will have 100K sales for the month from new business. I don't think they would like that very much and you'd get a lot of dithering.
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  The question is whether you're working for a sales company or a tech company. Sales companies will prioritise the requirements of sales people, and tech would prefer to ignore the sales guys. Frankly, as an engineer - I would never prefer the company where the sales people can decide how much overtime I would be doing in the end. Also - they would be getting all of the bonuses, since it's them making the decisions in the first place. The good thing I find is that working for the engineering companies usually implies having clients with a head on their shoulders (hence them knowing what they want and what they're getting; and how much time it usually takes).
wwweston 8y ago
Or in other words: a good estimate is itself a project.

mgoetzke 8y ago

Which is indeed successful. But this also takes time and sometimes sadly not allowed or deemed necessary. It also does not allow to respond to changes quickly unless a proper re-calculation is also done. Good technique for a lot of scenarios anyway.

snarf21 8y ago

This can surely work depending on organization. The problem is when the sales people need an estimate in two days or they don't get the contract. Then it is just a wild ass guess and the normal problems ensue. The reason that software is so hard to do in most cases is that you are making something that (by definition) has never been done before. Of course stuff is going to go bad. This is largely a corporate culture problem. In these cases, I want to have the sales people come to a weekly meeting and have them estimate when they will have 100K sales for the month from new business. I don't think they would like that very much and you'd get a lot of dithering.

heavenlyblue 8y ago
The question is whether you're working for a sales company or a tech company. Sales companies will prioritise the requirements of sales people, and tech would prefer to ignore the sales guys. Frankly, as an engineer - I would never prefer the company where the sales people can decide how much overtime I would be doing in the end. Also - they would be getting all of the bonuses, since it's them making the decisions in the first place. The good thing I find is that working for the engineering companies usually implies having clients with a head on their shoulders (hence them knowing what they want and what they're getting; and how much time it usually takes).

wwweston 8y ago

Or in other words: a good estimate is itself a project.