The document outlines the key stages of a typical project according to Conway's Law. It lists the 6 stages as: 1) enthusiasm, 2) disillusionment, 3) panic, 4) search for the guilty, 5) punishment of the innocent, and 6) praise and honors for the non-participants. The document suggests projects typically progress through these stages from an initial period of optimism to a later phase of blame and punishment before concluding.

1. Tathagat Varma
Tathagat Varma
Session 1/12: 13-May-2010

2.  There are no WRONG questions, no WRONG
answers - I expect you to interact, question and
disagree 
 Don’t assume anything blindly!
 Pedagogy:
 25% teaching (slides and references will be shared)
 25% classroom and online discussion (no slides for this !)
 25% self-study (your individual effort !)
o Expect you to read 2-3 general books and articles
 25% seminar / project / article (working as a team)
o Expect you to read 1-2 advanced books and relevant articles
 I don’t know everything  Let’s learn together !

3. Key
Knowledge
Areas
Topics
Strategic
Management
Introduc1on,
Linking
Strategic
Planning
to
new
product
development
New
Product
Development
New
Product
Development
/
New
Service
Development,
selec1ng
the
right
project,
Cost-­‐Benefit
Analysis,
Financial
Ra1os
(CF,
DCF,
NAV,
IRR),
Project
Lifecycle
Project
Ini1a1on
Charter,
Contract,
Preparing
a
Business
Case
Project
Planning
Scoping,
SoW,
WBS,
Es1ma1on,
Iden1fy
Stakeholders,
Risk
Management,
Organiza1on
Structure
(including
people
issues,
repor1ng
rela1onships,
etc.),
Staffing,
Budge1ng,
Scheduling,
PERT,
CPM,
GanT
Chart,
Quality
Project
Communica1ons
(Mee1ng,
Repor1ng),
Sobcotractor
Management
Project
Execu1on
Project
Execu1on,
Managing
Stakeholders
and
influencing
key
stakeholders,
Communica1on
Strategies
(including
using
modern
tools
like
Social
networking,
Video
conf,
TwiTer,
web
based
PM
tools,
Online
query
of
project
status
etc),
Overcoming
Poli1cal
Resistance
Project
Control
Project
Control:
EVM,
Metrics,
Project
Reviews,
Change
Management,
Project
Survival
Strategies
Project
Closure
Closure,
Evalua1on,
Post-­‐closure
Misc.
Topics
Project
Manager
Competencies,
Project
Success
Factors,
Managing
Troubled
Projects
Introduc1on
to
addi1onal
PMBOK,
So]ware
Development
Lifecycles,
Agile
/
Scrum,
Megaprojects,
TOC,
topics
(1me
&
interest
willing)
PRINCE2

4. Yahoo! Presentation, Confidential 4 4/17/11

5. 4/17/11

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15.  Civil engineering problem?
 Poor execution?
 Wrong requirements?
 Inadequate validation?
 Just one worker’s mistake?
 Bad design?
 Late requirement changes?
 Very minor issue?
 Your judgment ____________________
15 4/17/11

16. Name Year Probable cause of failure
Hubble Space Telescope 1990 Lack of total system test
Ariane 5 missile 1996 Incorrect reuse of software, Faulty scaling up
SuperConducting
1995 Cost overruns, Failure to maintain public support
SuperCollider
GE rotary compressor
1986 Inadequate testing of new technology
refrigerator
Misjudged competition and mispredicted
Motorola, Iridium 1999
technology
PCjr 1983 Failure to discover customer needs
Space Shuttle Challenger 1986 Bureaucratic mismanagement
Edsel automobile 1958 Failure to discover customer needs
Titanic 1912 Poor quality control
Apollo-13 1970 Poor configuration management
New Coke 1988 Arrogance
A-12 airplane 1980s Mismanagement
Nuclear Power Plant 1986 Bad design, Bad risk management, Cost cutting
Lewis Spacecraft 1997 Design mistakes
Mars Climate Orbiter 1999 Use of different units
Mars Polar Lander 2000 Failure of middle management
4/17/11
16

17.  Infamous for being late, buggy and costly
 Holy Grail of Software Development:
“Faster, Better, Cheaper”
 Software development is typically considered
 A ‘creative
process’
 A ‘wicked problem’
 The ‘predictable’ Waterfall model has been
blamed for poor project performance
 New thought is about using ‘adaptive’
processes
17 4/17/11

18.  Scope: fixed, changing, feature creep, “Featuritis”
 Size: size of software, development cost, number of people
 Schedule: length of schedule, fixed schedule, variable schedule
 Complexity: Volume Complexity, Innovation, NPD
 Development Paradigm: Waterfall, Agile, Kanban,…
 Location of teams: collocated, distributed, virtual
 Quality requirements: 6δ, Mil-Standards, FDA, 99.999,
Enterprise Class, Web, HA, Mission-critical
 Technology: existing, brand new, evolving,
 Team Structure: Command & Control, Democratic, etc.
 People: Skills, Experience, Domain Knowledge
 Tasks/activities: partitionable vs. division of labor, expertise vs.
fungibility, task dependencies, uncertainties, risks, estimates,
18

19.  On-time
 On-cost
 On-quality
 On-specs
 User Experience
 Performance / NFRs
 Deliver Business Benefits
 …any many more !!!
19 4/17/11

21. Success Category Measurable Success Criteria
Internal Project • Meeting schedule
Objectives • Within budget
(Pre-completion) • Other resource constraints met
Benefit to Customer • Meeting functional performance
(Short term) • Meeting technical specifications & standards
• Favorable impact on customer, customer's gain
• Fulfilling customer's needs
• Solving a customer's problem
• Customer is using product
• Customer expresses satisfaction
Direct Contribution • Immediate business and/or commercial success
(Medium term) • Immediate revenue and profits enhanced
• Larger market share generated
Future Opportunity • Will create new opportunities for future
(Long term) • Will position customer competitively
• Will create new market
• Will assist in developing new technology
• Has, or will, add capabilites and competencies

22. Full
Project
Benefits
Focus
Realization
Completed On-time
/on- budget
Business
Disaster
Focus
Delivered Expected
Benefits
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24. 24 4/17/11

25. 25 4/17/11

26. Yahoo! Presentation, Confidential 26 4/17/11

27. 27 4/17/11

28.  “Adding manpower to a late software project
makes it later”, The Mythical Man-Month,
1975

29.  “The number of months of a project depends
upon its sequential constraints.”
 “The maximum number of men depends
upon the number of independent subtasks.”
 “From these two quantities one can derive
schedules using fewer men and more
months. One cannot, however, get workable
schedules using more men and fewer
months. More software projects have gone
awry for lack of calendar time than for all
other causes combined.”
29 4/17/11

30. 30 4/17/11

31. Yahoo! Presentation, Confidential 31 4/17/11

32. 32 4/17/11

33. 33 4/17/11

34. 34 4/17/11

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40. 40 4/17/11

41. How does a
project get
late by a
month ???
41 4/17/11

42.  The most authoritative and comprehensive survey on IT
project performance since last 15+ years
 "This year's results show a marked decrease in project
success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which
are delivered on time, on budget, with required features
and functions" says Jim Johnson, chairman of The
Standish Group, "44% were challenged which are late,
over budget, and/or with less than the required features
and functions and 24% failed which are cancelled prior to
completion or delivered and never used."
"These numbers represent a downtick in the success rates
from the previous study, as well as a significant increase
in the number of failures", says Jim Crear, Standish
Group CIO, "They are low point in the last five study
periods. This year's results represent the highest failure
rate in over a decade"
42 4/17/11

43.  Successful: deliver on-time, on-budget, with required
features and functions
 Challenged: late, overbudget, and/or with less then
the required features and functions
 Failed: cancelled prior to completion or delivered and
never used
2009 2006 2004 2002 2000 1998 1996 1994
Successful 32% 35% 29% 34% 28% 26% 27% 16%
Challenged 44% 19% 53% 15% 23% 28% 40% 31%
Failed 24% 46% 18% 51% 49% 46% 33% 53%
43 4/17/11

44.  No Silver Bullet (NSB): there is no single
development, in either technology or
management technique, which by itself
promises even one order-of-magnitude
improvement within a decade in productivity, in
reliability, in simplicity – Fred Brookes, 1986
 High-level languages ?
 4GL?
 OOP?
 Reuse?
 Offshoring?
 Rapid Prototyping?
 What next ?
44 4/17/11

45.  Many projects 25 years behind time
 Key Trends from 937 big projects (20+ Cr):
 Schedule Overrun on projects has come down from 62% to 51%
(considered insignificant) in the past 18 years
 Cost Overrun has seen a huge dip. In May 1991, the cost overrun was more
than 62%. By September 2009, it came down to 12%
 Schedule Performance:
 486 time overrun,
 258 projects on schedule,
 only 17 are ahead of schedule
 delay ranges between 1 month and 324 months
 Worst-hit is the road transport and highways ministries - 162 out of 184
projects under these ministries are running behind schedule
 Cost Performance:
 300+ projects account for a cost overrun of Rs 77,518 cr, 54%.
 Ministries-wise, the railways' cost overrun on projects is pegged at 82%
above original
 Report attributed the time and cost overruns to factors including
inadequate funding, geological surprises and changes in the
scope of projects

47. 1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the
Guilty
5. Punishment of
the Innocent
6. Praise and
Honors for the
Non-Participants