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The problem is when you are one one cog in a much larger machine. My team has a specific launch date for a major release of our piece of the product. The ten ot
by mabbo 12y ago
The problem is when you are one one cog in a much larger machine. My team has a specific launch date for a major release of our piece of the product. The ten other teams around us depend on our release, and are going to meet their deadlines. The loss of one piece is the loss of the whole project.
Ideally, one should never let this situation happen- but it will.
Do I force the whole company to slip? Or do I accept that my piece is going to be crap at launch, but follow up and make it better later? Both options exist, and should be on the table. Which you pick is really up to the situation.
- oroup 12y agoWhen I was at Microsoft there was a phenomenon known as "schedule chicken" whereby each team in an interdependent group would report up "no problem totally on schedule" despite being way off in the hopes that some other (perhaps even more off-target) group would admit they needed to slip the date. Then all the other groups could breathe a sigh of relief and say, "We totally could have made it but given that those guys slipped the schedule, we'll use the time just to be extra awesome." Of course the problem is that if everyone plays this game, you end up right before the deadline with lots of groups simultaneously admitting they're nowhere near ready and you have a huge mess on your hands.