Experts Confront Development Management
Delivered at VSLive! Orlando, September 19, 2002
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| Alan Cooper (left) and Alan Brown participated in a lively panel discussion about the best approach to software management.
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At VSLive! Orlando Wednesday morning, five experts discussed how to manage software development better. Here are parts of their answers to moderator Jeff Hadfield's first question about their worst project.
Alan Brown: "It's difficult to overestimate the human capacity to make a simple project more complex. Most of the effort [in the disastrous project] involved people managing each other and reporting on each other, writing truckloads of documentation to satisfy requirements."
Alan Cooper: "The giant failure in the development management world is when organizations follow very accurately engineering, programming, or usability methodologies, feeling confident they will succeed, and have a very smooth development process. And then they ship a product that doesn't please users and has big tech support costs."
Ron Jeffries: "The most important thing I learned [from a failed project] was that it is possible to break things down into bite-sized chunks. If I'd known that trick, I could have laid down the cards (with the chunks on them in front of the CEO) and said, 'This is what we have to do. This is the time we have. You choose which of these we will do.' If I had done that, I could have saved the guy two million bucks."
Chris Kinsman: The worst project [I've been on was] for a large software company in Redmond. They had only a rough idea of what they wanted. The program manager couldn't come up with specs. The VP of the division rushed into making it a product. What was supposed to be a six-week project turned into eight months. It didn't meet anybody's needs exactly, although it met everybody's needs partially. I learned that you can't skimp on the design phase. Stick to that and avoid feature creep."
Richard Hale Shaw: "When the other development managers warn you about taking on a project, there's a good reason. Listen to them."
That was just the first question. View the video to get advice and commentary on project planning and estimation; choosing and changing the architecture; working with users, customers, analysts, and marketing executives; and more.
About the Speakers
Alan W. Brown
Alan W. Brown, Ph.D., is director of the Rational Development Accelerator Initiative at Rational Software. In this capacity, he defines strategy and manages release of products aimed at improving software development efficiency through reuse. Alan came to Rational in February 2001 through Rational's purchase of Catapulse Inc., a Silicon Valley startup funded by Rational Corp. and Benchmark Capital. Previously Alan was VP of R&D for Computer Associates' Application Development products, where he was responsible for advanced technology activities across the group. He has published more than 40 papers, edited three books, and authored four books, including Object-Oriented Databases: Applications in Software Engineering, Database Support for Software Engineering, and Large-Scale, Component-Based Development.
Alan Cooper
Alan Cooper's passion for humanizing technology and his experience as an inventor and software programmer provide the vision and focus for Cooper's wide range of GOAL-DIRECTED® services. Known among the digerati as a leading authority on customer experience, the "father" of Visual Basic, and a longtime champion of the interaction design discipline, Alan is the author of two best-selling books: About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design, and The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, and is in demand as a speaker on customer-centered issues worldwide.
Ron Jeffries
Ron Jeffries has been writing software, and managing and coaching development teams for longer than he cares to admit. Suffice it to say that he programmed the Digital PDP-1, and it wasn't his first computer. Ron is probably the most vocal, if not the most qualified, of the Extreme Programming spokesmodels. He was coach on the first XP project, and is primary author of Extreme Programming Installed. Ron holds the position of "XP Hammer" with Object Mentor.
Chris Kinsman
Chris Kinsman teaches courses on ASP.NET in both VB.NET and C#. In a previous life, Chris was the CTO for a large-scale Web site. Chris is a contributing editor for Visual Studio Magazine and is currently working on an ASP.NET book for SAMS. Chris is not a full-time speaker, and most of his time is spent doing consulting with Vergent Software. Reach him at ckinsman@vergentsoftware.com.
Richard Hale Shaw
Richard Hale Shaw is the founder of the Richard Hale Shaw Group, which has consulted and trained software developers since 1993. He's created and chaired numerous technical conferences and created the COM, COM+, and .NET BootCamps. An articulate writer and speaker on topics dear to the hearts of software developers and an outspoken critic of broken devtools, Richard specializes in consulting and training on .NET programming in C# and COM+ programming in C++. You can reach Richard at rhs@RichardHaleShawGroup.com.
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