PMinFOCUS

Rick A. Morris on unrealistic expectations:

I like to compare projects to weight loss.  Look, I would love to take a pill at night, never have to work out, eat whatever I want, and lose weight.  The reality is that eating right and exercise is what it takes.  The sales numbers for weight loss fads, products, pills, exercise machines, etc. is staggering!  Every day I hear an ad for a new product that promised dramatic weight loss without changing and of the bad habits that lead to the weight gain in the first place.  It is this same mentality that continues to plague projects.  This mentality that if we put it out there it will happen and if we don’t acknowledge the bad stuff, it doesn’t exist is the basis of many of the organizations in business today.

This is true, a lot of organisation do not take planning seriously and prefer to manage issues when they are boiling red.

John Larson on offshoring:

Our heroes’ need to be super explicit in order to get what they want reveals another major advantage that local programmers have: nobody wants to have to babysit their programmer with constant direction and correction.  Communicate the overall vision of what you’re trying to create for your customers, and any programmer worth their salt will bring their A-game to solve it from that shared understanding.  The net result is a project that is completed faster, racks up far fewer billable hours, and saves you headaches and time.

I am sure I am not the only one thinking “Yes, that’s about right”.