This is one of my bitter experiences to have witnessed in my career. It's not only about the number of resources, but also their skill sets. Always commit the estimate, after you have evaluated the skill levels of the resources available. Concrete estimates come only after all the requirements are freezed up.
It should not happen that requirement that is given to you initially, is just a tip of the iceberg. Later on, you may find yourself trapped in a soup fighting over the new requirements and time, all the way throughout the project development. Especially, when you are also fully involved in coding, testing and management. This won't leave you with enough time to manage as well as solve the problems/hurdles.
Development is not the only factor that should be considered, but also the environment under which the work is to be carried out, plays an important role. Due to lack of office space in small companies I have seen developers being made to sit parallel to the marketing and call support departments. Core development requires peaceful atmosphere where developers can concentrate writing creative lines of code. Given the nature of job for marketing department, they are the people of interactive personality and are in the habit of sharing unwanted stuff whenever they find time between marketing calls. This may frequently interrupt the development process. It is not to blame them, but is the requirement of their job profile. I mean interactivity and not bugging the the developers :-).
One more aspect of environment is your software system environment. This is where you will initiate coding. Ensure that system environment is all setup to the satisfaction. If not, also provide the estimate for the same.
It should not happen that requirement that is given to you initially, is just a tip of the iceberg. Later on, you may find yourself trapped in a soup fighting over the new requirements and time, all the way throughout the project development. Especially, when you are also fully involved in coding, testing and management. This won't leave you with enough time to manage as well as solve the problems/hurdles.
Development is not the only factor that should be considered, but also the environment under which the work is to be carried out, plays an important role. Due to lack of office space in small companies I have seen developers being made to sit parallel to the marketing and call support departments. Core development requires peaceful atmosphere where developers can concentrate writing creative lines of code. Given the nature of job for marketing department, they are the people of interactive personality and are in the habit of sharing unwanted stuff whenever they find time between marketing calls. This may frequently interrupt the development process. It is not to blame them, but is the requirement of their job profile. I mean interactivity and not bugging the the developers :-).
One more aspect of environment is your software system environment. This is where you will initiate coding. Ensure that system environment is all setup to the satisfaction. If not, also provide the estimate for the same.
1 comment:
I have a beautiful poster with same title: never start a project unless all resources are available. please let me know your email address so that i can send you that poster and you can put it on your blog.
it is about some one siting in toilet and realising there is NO Toilet paper.
rkagarwalhal@rediffmail.com
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