June 22, 2009

Rightsizing Your Project in a Down Economy

…is the topic of a new talk that Lee Copeland – chief poombah at SQE – asked me to give at the Fall 2009 Agile Development Practices Conference at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando FL this November.

I’ve got a few war stories to share since the case study format is what I find best for topics like these. Self-defeating behaviors are what I’ll try to tackle; some of what happens in a recession falls into this category as people scramble to adjust to “compressed” thinking – compress my dates, budgets, (expand project scope), and compress my family life. How can we cope?

I’d welcome folks to weigh in on this subject by the blog comments or via email. Send a message to my attention at info@qsma.com. Would love to hear from you! Or better yet, come to Orlando on November 9th. Here’s a description of my talk:

Rightsizing Your Project in a Down Economy

In tough times, both shoes drop simultaneously and “scarcity thinking” takes over in senior executives, managers, and development teams. In this environment, dysfunction can wreak havoc on your projects in the form of scope greed, death-march deadlines, and budget cuts. Often, the tendency is to say “yes” to impossible dates, take on too much, suffer the budget cuts, and pray that heroics might save the day. This is a disaster waiting to happen. It takes a skillful manager to “rightsize” critical projects – right team, right scope, right dates – at the beginning. Scarcity thinking threatens all three. Michael Mah describes how to lead difficult conversations to discuss the “undiscussables.” Michael shares how to artfully frame trade-offs for stakeholders to set priorities and get buy-in by using a blend of common sense, essential measurement concepts, and rules of software estimation. Whether you’re agile, waterfall, or offshore, discover information you need to make the right choices and gain the support of your organization.