One more complaint from my students (see Monday\/Tuesday posts) is: “I’m given other jobs, in addition to my coding, and asked to do them without impacting the main project I’m working on.\u00a0 Not just occasionally, in a crisis, but all the time.”<\/p>\n
Some might say that this trait of trying to squeeze more out of Engineering is just human nature or even a good Management technique, and that you can’t blame Management for trying.\u00a0 But I say you can<\/em> blame them for trying.\u00a0 They should<\/em> know better.<\/p>\n Management believes engineers pad their estimates, and therefore they probably have a bunch of time available to get other work done.\u00a0 Or they think engineers love working until midnight every day.\u00a0 And on weekends.<\/p>\n Ironically, if engineers are always given additional (but unpredictable) work to do, they will<\/em> pad their estimates.<\/p>\n This problem is similar to making project changes without assessing and including the impact, but it’s more insidious, because this bad behavior can be happening even when there is a change management system in place which is followed<\/em>.\u00a0 These “extra tasks” are not for the primary project, and so the work they require may not be estimated and the primary project’s schedule is not modified to include it.<\/p>\n I think a large part of the solution to this problem lies in using a work tracking tool that can track all the work of Engineering, regardless of project.\u00a0 The work elements could be new development on Project A, enhancements due to changes on Project A, maintenance tasks or bugs on Project B, some requirement writing or analysis for potential Project C, etc.\u00a0 If each work element is estimated, the workload of each assignee can be added up and evaluated against deadlines.<\/p>\n This can be done with a spreadsheet or a more specialized tool.\u00a0 At my last job, we had such a tool that tracked all engineering work (and was used as our bug tracker as well).\u00a0 It was so liked by the engineers that they wouldn’t work on a task unless there was a work task opened for them to do the work against.\u00a0 Sounds bureaucratic and obstructive, but it wasn’t.\u00a0 It worked great.\u00a0 (If you’re curious, you can find out more about it on the Duck Pond Software consulting link below my name.)<\/p>\n But, once again, if Management does not buy into the process and tool, nothing will change.\u00a0 Selling Management on the benefits of work tracking is much like selling them on change management.\u00a0 Management must be made to understand:<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 how many little extra tasks will result in missed deadlines, and how missing those deadlines will mean missing the turnover to testing, resulting in missing the release schedule.<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that engineers will eventually give up on their project deadlines after being given additional tasks with the inference that these new tasks are higher priority.\u00a0 And Management must understand how demoralizing this all can be.<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that the use of a work tracking process for all Engineering tasks will result in greater Management visibility into what everyone is doing and greater project control.<\/p>\n And, in the end, it has to involve Trust.\u00a0 Trust that Engineering is using legitimate estimates in their schedule, and not padding it to compensate for extra work they’ll be asked to do.\u00a0 Trust that Management won’t do end-arounds and task the engineers outside of the process.\u00a0 Trust is key.<\/p>\n Anita Wotiz One more complaint from my students (see Monday\/Tuesday posts) is: “I’m given other jobs, in addition to my coding, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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\nwww.duckpondsoftware.com<\/a>
\nInstructor, UCSC Extension, SEQ Program<\/a>
\nSoftware Requirements Engineering (next class Aug 2008)
\nSoftware Project Planning, Monitoring, and Management (next class Nov 2008)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"