C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 07:10:56 -0300 (CLST)

Interesting times at work.

The team leads and project manager have recently been hammering out a
project plan.

Part of that process, of negotiating and fixing what we are doing, has
been a date.  A deadline by which we are expected to produce a product.

In a software project you can do more work if you have more time. so
one of the problems we have been facing - a never-ending list of
features - has been accomodated by a never-ending timeline.  Having a
deadline stops that.

In "real life" we negotiate restricted resources with money.  That can
fail with inflation - when, say, the government simply prints whatever
money it needs.  Forgive the simplistic economics, but the parallel is
clear: a deadline stops the inflation of time.  It puts a strict limit
on "available funds" and provides a solid basis for negotation.

So a deadline is useful tool.  One more for the toolbox.  Useful for
some problems.

And, of course, useless for others.

There's a longer version of this post at
http://www.acooke.org/andrew/diary/2006/jan/17.html for those with
access (email me).