10 Ways To Insure Project Failure If you want your next software development project to fail, and not just

a small way but in big, spectacular, way, here are some sure fire steps for you to foll ow: 1. Set Unrealistic Goals Your management says the project has to be done in 2 months. You know it can t be done in any less than 6 and it s probably more like 9 months. But, hey, they want it in 2 and you re in no position to challenge them so why not just go ahead and a gree to it. Your team won t mind. After all, if they agree to work 80 hours a week they should be able to pull it off. Besides, you ve just gotten the purchase of a brand new code generation tool approved. This will save loads of time in the pr oject. 2. Staff Up Quickly You need people on your team ASAP. Hire the first warm bodies your pal at Progra mmers-R-Us sends over for an interview. Your project has a tight schedule so you need somebody, anybody, on-board and ready to code. Don t bother with having your team participate in the interview process or be too picky. If you do, you might lose the good candidates to other companies. 3. The More Documentation The Better Require your team to document everything. You need a scribe to take down the min utes of each and every meeting and publish them afterwards. Every form must be f illed out according to a mandated template taken from an antiquated mainframe me thodology you learned in school or a NASA software development handbook you boug ht on eBay. Insist developers write out weekly, or even daily, status reports. Y ou can never have too much data about a project. Ignore the whiners on your team who complain about being overloaded with useless work. They just don t understand the benefits of good documentation. 4. You Can Always Make Up a Schedule Slip Later in the Project If your project is falling behind it is always safe to assume that you can make up the difference later. People were just goofing off or getting into the projec t at first. Everybody knows that as the project progresses everyone gets more co mfortable and productive. Just like in a distance race, everyone stores up enoug h energy for a big sprint at the end. Count on having a strong finish for your p roject. 5. Relax Your Standards To Shorten the Schedule OK, so it looks like the document everything plan is not going to work out so we ll. The obvious answer is to do the opposite, scrap all documentation including any end user instructions or help files. That extra work can be done after the p roject is completed. Also, cut out fluff like integration and user testing, well managed source control and test systems and your other standard coding processe s and procedures that just get in the way. Quality isn t important, only completin g the project on time is important. 6. Micromanage If left to their own devices team members will goof off. It is your job to stay on them 24/7. If traffic is bad one morning, make a point of calling late team m embers on their cell phone every 2 minutes to gauge the progress of their commut e. Who knows, they actually may be lounging at Starbucks rather than sitting in their car behind a jackknifed semi. Call them in the evening at home as well, pa rticularly if they have the audacity to leave early, to discuss fine points of t he project for 30 minutes or so. Use time management software to track each deve loper s time in and out of the office and exactly what they re working on throughout the day. Also, you should swing by every team member s cubical 2 or more times a day to ask them about their progress. Feel free to offer your sage suggestions a bout whatever they re working on. This lets them know how much you care. 7. Call a Daily Project Status Meetings You should have at least one daily meeting to take the pulse of the project. Thi s is best scheduled either first thing in the morning or very late in the aftern oon. This helps insure everyone is arriving on time and not leaving early. Bette r yet, schedule a meeting for both times for a win-win situation. Every point of the schedule and the day s work should be discussed in detail during these meetin

gs. You have the room and the team s attention for a full hour so why not use it t o the fullest? 8. Threaten Team Members to Motivate Them If your team is falling behind the problem is that you aren t motivating them enou gh. You re allowing them to goof off and fall behind! Put your project back on tra ck by putting their feet to the fire. Let them know that if they don t dedicate th emselves wholly to the project they ll be finding a new job. Question their compet ence as programmers and mention how anyone who doesn t perform up to standards wil l be fired so as to spur them on to greater acheivement. You will be amazed at h ow motivated your team is after you take this approach. 9. Bring In More Programmers That Brooks guy s ideas might have applied way back in 70 s at IBM but they don t appl y in modern, Web 2.0, times. Screw the Mythical Man Month . Bringing in more progra mmers means more people coding and thus more getting done faster, simple as that . You could even have them work shifts using the same computers to save office s pace and equipment costs. You can easily find or invent a buzz word to describe what you re doing to sell it to the team and your management. What a brilliant cou p that would be! 10. Set Your Plan in Stone Never, ever, back down on your vision of the project schedule or plan. You said 2 months with the new tool and you meant it. You know you have awesome estimatio n and project management skills. Don t entertain any complaints about your choices in meetings. Anyone questioning your decision is being insubordinate and disres pectful and probably just looking for a way to slack off. How dare they question your competence and authority? Special Bonus Idea If you need good political cover for implementing these steps toward failure you need to tie them to a popular development and project management buzzword like Scrum, Agile, or Extreme Programming. All of these methods offer excellent cover to you both during and after the project. This shows your managers that you re on top of the latest software development project management trends while your tea m are a bunch of disloyal whiners who can t stand to have their cheese moved. Furt hermore, when the project fails you will be recognized as a company expert of th e method since you know what doesn t work. Does it matter that you just cargo culte d these methods? No, not at all. You re well on your way to being the next pointy ha ired boss or Bill Lumbergh. R Kishore Kumar, PMP Deputy General Manager - Process Design & Technology Development iSolve Technologies Private Limited 3A KG Business Centre, #65 TTK Road Alwarpet, Chennai-600 018, India www.isolve.co.in