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> Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. This is a death march - no question abou

by shagie 4y ago

> Going "hardcore" on things can be fun, at the right time in your life, for the right reasons, with the right people. This is a death march - no question about it. The book by Edward Yourdon should be required reading for any who are still at Twitter. One of the things that is in the book had in it that I recall was a four quadrant grid of 'morale' and 'likelihood of success'(?). There are indeed high morale high chance of success death marches - and they can be fun to be on. The "we will get this done and it will be glorious" type things. There are also the low morale high chance of success that just drag on and it is a "we will get this done, and then we will all quit." I've been on that one - it was awful. I can only imagine the low morale low chance ones being completely dreadful and people hoping that it gets canceled before too much longer. Amazon says that I got a copy of this on August 11th, 2012... and that was an order in which the book I got was given to my manager at the time. The project rolled out in October (before Black Friday code freezes went in effect) and I started looking for new employment in January after the company did its yearly bonuses.

CobaltFire 4y ago
I don’t think the employees staying for Twitter 2.0 will have time for such trivialities as reading a book given the hours being talked about.
jboy55 4y ago
One of the things I do to ground myself in situations where I'm facing a death march, or find myself working at a company that does a pivot is listen to the song "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads. If the intro lyrics cut too deep, I start looking. Well, we know where we're goin' But we don't know where we've been And we know what we're knowin' But we can't say what we've seen And we're not little children And we know what we want And the future is certain Give us time to work it out https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics
- gausswho 4y ago
  I'll add On the One Road. Inspired the Irish to join in WWI with pretty devastating consequences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw "We're on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But we're together so who cares!"
  - mayankkaizen 4y ago
    >"We're on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But we're together so who cares!" "I'm on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But I'm alone so who cares!" I am going to use this fixed version for my own purposes.
- seesaw 4y ago
  This reminds me of this saying: We, the unwilling Led by the unknowing Are doing the impossible For the ungrateful We have done so much For so long With so little We are now qualified To do anything With nothing
MivLives 4y ago
I googled the name of this book and for me your post on Reddit about it four years ago (I assume it's you due to the similar username). Guess it hasn't gotten anymore out of date. I'll have to look into a getting a copy.
- shagie 4y ago
  Assuming its the same post as I found when searching, that's me... https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/9ymkmg/how_do_i_get_out_of_a_death_march_project/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/9ymkmg/h... you'll also see the same date too. The order itself - https://imgur.com/TkDmLPv https://imgur.com/TkDmLPv I try to keep the same name/idenity-ish across systems. It was originally a collision of names (three people on the team all had the same first name). One got the short form, one the long form, and the Scoobie Do movie had just come out and for some reason, I got "Shaggy". A bit later, had a coworker who was Japanese and my first name is awkward to say to the Japanese sounds, but "shaggy" is fine - except that it was pronounced as "SHA-gie" which turned out to be much less taken as a user name than the traditional form, so I use it where I can. That order also had Slack and Peopleware by Tom DeMarco (which I'll also recommend). These are things that are timeless (though Peopleware is on a 3rd edition).
  - MivLives 4y ago
    Yup that's the post. Thanks for the recs! Been trying to learn more as I come from a nonCS background.
    - shagie 4y ago
      These books are about time management, project management, culture, workspaces... and reasonably applicable to all domains - not just software development. Death marches are often software projects, but I've seen some lawyers on a "death march" case where its dragging on and on. The ideas of Slack are applicable to every job - though especially those of knowledge workers (the book is likely as good for building architects as it is for software developers). Similar things about productivity and desk space are also true for architects and software developers. They're good books and interesting things to read... but they're not books about software development as software.

by shagie 4y ago

CobaltFire 4y ago

I don’t think the employees staying for Twitter 2.0 will have time for such trivialities as reading a book given the hours being talked about.

jboy55 4y ago

One of the things I do to ground myself in situations where I'm facing a death march, or find myself working at a company that does a pivot is listen to the song "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads. If the intro lyrics cut too deep, I start looking. Well, we know where we're goin' But we don't know where we've been And we know what we're knowin' But we can't say what we've seen And we're not little children And we know what we want And the future is certain Give us time to work it out https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics https://genius.com/Talking-heads-road-to-nowhere-lyrics

gausswho 4y ago
I'll add On the One Road. Inspired the Irish to join in WWI with pretty devastating consequences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X44OfwqiZAw "We're on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But we're together so who cares!"
- mayankkaizen 4y ago
  >"We're on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But we're together so who cares!" "I'm on the one road. It may be the wrong road. But I'm alone so who cares!" I am going to use this fixed version for my own purposes.
seesaw 4y ago
This reminds me of this saying: We, the unwilling Led by the unknowing Are doing the impossible For the ungrateful We have done so much For so long With so little We are now qualified To do anything With nothing

MivLives 4y ago

I googled the name of this book and for me your post on Reddit about it four years ago (I assume it's you due to the similar username). Guess it hasn't gotten anymore out of date. I'll have to look into a getting a copy.

shagie 4y ago
Assuming its the same post as I found when searching, that's me... https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/9ymkmg/how_do_i_get_out_of_a_death_march_project/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/9ymkmg/h... you'll also see the same date too. The order itself - https://imgur.com/TkDmLPv https://imgur.com/TkDmLPv I try to keep the same name/idenity-ish across systems. It was originally a collision of names (three people on the team all had the same first name). One got the short form, one the long form, and the Scoobie Do movie had just come out and for some reason, I got "Shaggy". A bit later, had a coworker who was Japanese and my first name is awkward to say to the Japanese sounds, but "shaggy" is fine - except that it was pronounced as "SHA-gie" which turned out to be much less taken as a user name than the traditional form, so I use it where I can. That order also had Slack and Peopleware by Tom DeMarco (which I'll also recommend). These are things that are timeless (though Peopleware is on a 3rd edition).
- MivLives 4y ago
  Yup that's the post. Thanks for the recs! Been trying to learn more as I come from a nonCS background.
  - shagie 4y ago
    These books are about time management, project management, culture, workspaces... and reasonably applicable to all domains - not just software development. Death marches are often software projects, but I've seen some lawyers on a "death march" case where its dragging on and on. The ideas of Slack are applicable to every job - though especially those of knowledge workers (the book is likely as good for building architects as it is for software developers). Similar things about productivity and desk space are also true for architects and software developers. They're good books and interesting things to read... but they're not books about software development as software.