6 ms·

Are projects failing when someone takes a vacation or quits? If not, then the evidence says that what they’re doing is working, and you should learn how it’s s

• throwAwayWMS 4y ago
  Vacations are centrally managed/approved so that it has minimal impact on projects. But yes, we had someone catch COVID, and it lead to the project being delayed by several weeks. Also (before my time), apparently some smaller projects/features died when people quit and the transition was poorly handled.
  • beagle3 4y ago
    Delays/dying-features with unexpected sickness / leave is common in startups and lean companies - if these things don’t affect schedule, it means you have “spares”, either in man power, in scheduling, or both. Spares are a good thing, but they are a trade off - you either pay constantly to have extra capacity and avoid delays, or pay only when an event happens. Which one is preferable depends on the relative costs, your culture, your industry, etc. One of my customers is a big government agency that is well staffed, and can keep on working at the same rate with 10% of their employees quitting tomorrow and another 20% getting one week off for Covid every month. You can imagine how (in)efficient day to day work there is. If I actually had to work there, and not just deliver finished projects, I would lose my mind.