10. Case Study - Best Sellers
Project Overview:
■ New design w/ NYT custom webfonts
■ Switch to APIs backed data
■ Ability to navigate to previous weeks
18. Case Study - Best Sellers
What went wrong from the start:
■ Only "requirements" were the just the project
goals
■ Product owner was really just business
development lead
■ Features driven by design team
19. Case Study - Best Sellers
6 weeks in, launch approaching...
21. Case Study - Best Sellers
"But we want it to go back to 5 previous
years worth of history"
■ API only supported 18 months
■ Previously used data store wasn't organized to
be historic (was treated like an article in the
paper, publish once and move on)
22. Case Study - Best Sellers
"Buy button should go directly to book
URL"
■ Old application went to a "list" view on Amazon
or local bookseller website
■ "Can you add in B&N links the week of launch,
too?"
23.
24. Case Study - Best Sellers
3 months in, we finally launched
25.
26. A certain kind of scope
creep
Wasn't just a desire for a more robust
product, they were truly worried no
developer team would touch their
product for another two years
27. Primary scope creep
Initial scope creep should have been
addressed
■ Actual requirements, not just "mimic" old logic
■ Clearer tracking of changes
■ More concrete milestone and launch dates
29. Resource hugging
Actually iterate
■ Schedule a phase II for 2-3 weeks after launch
■ Bug fixes, user feedback, etc
■ Ensure items descoped from phase I are
addressed (or publicly cut) from phase II
30. Resource hugging
Matrix the developers, not the team
■ Have an assigned team
■ Members may swap teams
■ Teams may expand or contract
31. Resource hugging
Close-out as important as kick-off
■ Post mortem on negative impacts
■ Discuss why features were left on the table
■ Measure success and organize check-ins
32. Not just new projects
Resource hugging happens often on
projects in "maintenance mode"
33. Maintenance mode
You decide to fix bugs or add features,
but not make a new project
■ People come out of the woodwork with new
requests -- "now is my only chance"
■ 1 week of "bugs" becomes a month of dragged
out drudgery
34. Maintenance mode
Have a running backlog of bugs and new
features
■ Keep it constantly up to date
■ Draw a circle around the changes as part of this
"bug fix" round and stick to that list
■ Any other bombardment of new request goes
into the queue for prioritization on the next
round
35. Stop hugging me
Call out when resource hugging happens
■ Refer to the rationale of other higher priorities,
make the plan of record known
■ Be diligent in managing all aspects of scope
creep and resource hugging likelihood will be
diminished
