Brook's Mythical Man Month chapter 14:

Hatching a Catastrophepresented by Collin

Milestones or Millstones?

-Most projects are set behind their deadlines because of numerous small setbacks instead of a single large problem.

- The solution is to have a schedule!

-Set dates by which certain milestones of the project should be complete

-“Milestones MUST be concrete, specific, measurable events, defined with knife-edge sharpness.”

-When a member of a team is sure to “hustle” then that is a mark of a good teammate.

-Working faster than seems necessary is desirable

-In terms of schedule, a single, one day slip must not go unaddressed and must be remedied.

“The Other Piece Is Late, Anyway”

Under the Rug

-Often when the manager of a sub-team notices his team working behind schedule, he avoids telling his boss until he must, because he thinks the team might make it up.

-This is because the interests of the first-line manager and those of the boss have inherent conflict here.

Reducing the role conflict

-The boss must learn to distinguish between “action” information and “status” information.

-The boss must discipline himself not to act on problems which his managers can solve, and never to act on problems when he is explicitly reviewing status.

-When a manager knows his boss will accept status reports without panic or preemption, he comes to give honest appraisals.

Yanking the rug off

-Nevertheless, it is necessary to have review techniques whereby the true status is made known, whether cooperatively or not.

-On a large project one may want to review some part each week, making the rounds once a month or so.

-A worker at Bell Telephone Labs has also found it useful to have both “scheduled” and also

“estimated” dates in the milestone report. This way things are prioritized better.

The end.