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Main ingredients for turning around a doomed IT project

2 points by AdamPadam 8y ago

HelloNurse 8y ago
Normally, a "doomed" IT project is canceled (maybe partly, in the form of a cheaper redesign/scope reduction) or allowed to be late; how can it be "turned around" when the damage is done? A team doesn't become more capable or more efficient by trying hard and recovering motivation, learning takes time. Discussing "mission", ownership and (most worrying) values in this context is very strange; it's probably advice for nontechnical (i.e. incompetent) managers that don't have, and never had, any chance to understand and address the actual problems.
- BlackLotus89 8y ago
  What he seems to be talking about are failing projects. Even thought he talks about doomed projects on both medium posts (that he posted both in a matter of minutes to HN) he is referencing to failing projects that have something against them (money, disfunctional team, time, ...) Many of his conclusions are questionable and seem more or less only plausible because everyone likes a dramatic story/underdog winning. E.g. in his "I'm passionate about doomed IT projects" article he says > Extremely unified and high performing teams. > These are people that I would truly cherish the opportunity to work with again. I know that they are rock solid and that if we ever worked together again, we would make an extremely effective team right off the bat. Those are the same people that fucked the project up to begin with and yay they changed and the project was saved and maybe they redeemed themself in the process, but I would rather work with people that I could trust from the beginning and not becajse they changed when their ass was on the line. I have quite a few people I like to work with and some I met in a project that felt like "we against the world" but with them it never felt like we were failing and nobody would call the project dommed, because we routinely achieve the results we more or less expected. If we would fuck up this hard that our project was deemed as doomed than I would have a hard time getting sleep at night. Anyway his article is "only" about changing the mindset and talking to the team, but really nothing about how to organize. And yes of course a project is doomed if nobody on the team wants to work on it, bad-mouths it and actively tries to fuck you over. Ps excuse my language, but the "article" left a bad taste in my mouth because it seems more "inspirational" then anything else from a person that just wants exposure. I could be wrong... I don't think I'm
  - HelloNurse 8y ago
    "I had to learn, out of sheer necessity, the tools to create unity and direction for teams. This is a skill that is so powerful and fascinating it eclipses all my technical skills." "No matter what has happened in the past, now is the time to own up to mistakes, and set new standards for going forward." The familiar delusional narrative that it's their fault is easy to see. In addition, passion about turning around failing projects seems intrinsically psychotic; it's a job, not a struggle for one's life.
    - AdamPadam 8y ago
      Hey HelloNurse, thanks for the feedback. I understand that you think Im sensationalising, that advice is taken to heart and will not be repeated in my future writing. Ill elaborate on your points. "I had to learn, out of sheer necessity, the tools to create unity and direction for teams. This is a skill that is so powerful and fascinating it eclipses all my technical skills." I say this because I'm a programmer, not a team building dude. But I was put in a project to turn it around, an important detail I did not put in the article. The project was over time and over time and over budget and most of the original team was removed and me and the team I refer to was put in. There was a total breakdown of communication and no work productive work was getting done. Nobody knew what to do. Thats why I contacted a guy I know which does business coaching and he taught me the three overarching things I mention in article 2 and the tools to build teams that I will be elaborating on in future posts. "No matter what has happened in the past, now is the time to own up to mistakes, and set new standards for going forward." I have seen plenty of unethical behaviour in my career. When your ass is on the line and your loosing money every hour, its easy to take the easy way out and take shortcuts. This is something that will permeate the project culture, and needs to stop. My sleep is more important than the project. Does this make it clearer what I meant? "In addition, passion about turning around failing projects seems intrinsically psychotic; it's a job, not a struggle for one's life." Here Im absolutely of guilty sensationalising. I was trying to get people to click and it worked, at the time of writing this comment it has almost 1k reads on medium which is way more than I was expecting. But it's a lie, Im not passionate about doomed projects, I'm passionate about highly successful projects. I just happened to learn the tools for how to create goal oriented teams from doomed projects. Thanks again for taking the time to write a comment, I'm very new at this so I need the candid feedback (everyone I showed to beforehand just said it was awesome so they were clearly just humouring me :D ). Cheers, Adam

2 points by AdamPadam 8y ago

Normally, a "doomed" IT project is canceled (maybe partly, in the form of a cheaper redesign/scope reduction) or allowed to be late; how can it be "turned around" when the damage is done? A team doesn't become more capable or more efficient by trying hard and recovering motivation, learning takes time. Discussing "mission", ownership and (most worrying) values in this context is very strange; it's probably advice for nontechnical (i.e. incompetent) managers that don't have, and never had, any chance to understand and address the actual problems.

BlackLotus89 8y ago
What he seems to be talking about are failing projects. Even thought he talks about doomed projects on both medium posts (that he posted both in a matter of minutes to HN) he is referencing to failing projects that have something against them (money, disfunctional team, time, ...) Many of his conclusions are questionable and seem more or less only plausible because everyone likes a dramatic story/underdog winning. E.g. in his "I'm passionate about doomed IT projects" article he says > Extremely unified and high performing teams. > These are people that I would truly cherish the opportunity to work with again. I know that they are rock solid and that if we ever worked together again, we would make an extremely effective team right off the bat. Those are the same people that fucked the project up to begin with and yay they changed and the project was saved and maybe they redeemed themself in the process, but I would rather work with people that I could trust from the beginning and not becajse they changed when their ass was on the line. I have quite a few people I like to work with and some I met in a project that felt like "we against the world" but with them it never felt like we were failing and nobody would call the project dommed, because we routinely achieve the results we more or less expected. If we would fuck up this hard that our project was deemed as doomed than I would have a hard time getting sleep at night. Anyway his article is "only" about changing the mindset and talking to the team, but really nothing about how to organize. And yes of course a project is doomed if nobody on the team wants to work on it, bad-mouths it and actively tries to fuck you over. Ps excuse my language, but the "article" left a bad taste in my mouth because it seems more "inspirational" then anything else from a person that just wants exposure. I could be wrong... I don't think I'm
- HelloNurse 8y ago
  "I had to learn, out of sheer necessity, the tools to create unity and direction for teams. This is a skill that is so powerful and fascinating it eclipses all my technical skills." "No matter what has happened in the past, now is the time to own up to mistakes, and set new standards for going forward." The familiar delusional narrative that it's their fault is easy to see. In addition, passion about turning around failing projects seems intrinsically psychotic; it's a job, not a struggle for one's life.
  - AdamPadam 8y ago
    Hey HelloNurse, thanks for the feedback. I understand that you think Im sensationalising, that advice is taken to heart and will not be repeated in my future writing. Ill elaborate on your points. "I had to learn, out of sheer necessity, the tools to create unity and direction for teams. This is a skill that is so powerful and fascinating it eclipses all my technical skills." I say this because I'm a programmer, not a team building dude. But I was put in a project to turn it around, an important detail I did not put in the article. The project was over time and over time and over budget and most of the original team was removed and me and the team I refer to was put in. There was a total breakdown of communication and no work productive work was getting done. Nobody knew what to do. Thats why I contacted a guy I know which does business coaching and he taught me the three overarching things I mention in article 2 and the tools to build teams that I will be elaborating on in future posts. "No matter what has happened in the past, now is the time to own up to mistakes, and set new standards for going forward." I have seen plenty of unethical behaviour in my career. When your ass is on the line and your loosing money every hour, its easy to take the easy way out and take shortcuts. This is something that will permeate the project culture, and needs to stop. My sleep is more important than the project. Does this make it clearer what I meant? "In addition, passion about turning around failing projects seems intrinsically psychotic; it's a job, not a struggle for one's life." Here Im absolutely of guilty sensationalising. I was trying to get people to click and it worked, at the time of writing this comment it has almost 1k reads on medium which is way more than I was expecting. But it's a lie, Im not passionate about doomed projects, I'm passionate about highly successful projects. I just happened to learn the tools for how to create goal oriented teams from doomed projects. Thanks again for taking the time to write a comment, I'm very new at this so I need the candid feedback (everyone I showed to beforehand just said it was awesome so they were clearly just humouring me :D ). Cheers, Adam