Thursday, February 01, 2007
You Cannot get a baby in a month by making nine women pregnant, by Wally Dobelis
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Urgently needed, a copy of the above article by Wally Dobelis , in Town & Village about 1999. It is an IT expression first used by the author in an in-house publication around 1982, explaining the impossibility of accelerating computer project development to meet deadlines by using additional programmers, who first need weeks of orientation and technical background studies and seminars (cf "Mongolian hordes"). The fact that projects were delayed by constant specification and product changes, dictated by the marketplace, was not well received, and "freezing the specs" would be suggested. In the past 25 years project philosophy has undergone variations, to recognize the problem, and IPO, HIPO, Chief programmer conceptsubdividing (modularizing), waterfall with modifications, and most recently, iteration (i.e. developing basic part, then adding) methods have been in use
This is not readily understood by management, and the explanation brought the author nothing but grief, and a reputation for contrariness. Other managers, willing to accept the management offer to hire and spend were able to advance their careers because of their cooperation, although project completion was obstructed and deadlines were met by trimming project objectives ("bareboning the project").
Urgently needed, a copy of the above article by Wally Dobelis , in Town & Village about 1999. It is an IT expression first used by the author in an in-house publication around 1982, explaining the impossibility of accelerating computer project development to meet deadlines by using additional programmers, who first need weeks of orientation and technical background studies and seminars (cf "Mongolian hordes"). The fact that projects were delayed by constant specification and product changes, dictated by the marketplace, was not well received, and "freezing the specs" would be suggested. In the past 25 years project philosophy has undergone variations, to recognize the problem, and IPO, HIPO, Chief programmer conceptsubdividing (modularizing), waterfall with modifications, and most recently, iteration (i.e. developing basic part, then adding) methods have been in use
This is not readily understood by management, and the explanation brought the author nothing but grief, and a reputation for contrariness. Other managers, willing to accept the management offer to hire and spend were able to advance their careers because of their cooperation, although project completion was obstructed and deadlines were met by trimming project objectives ("bareboning the project").
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 7:07 AM 
