Crunch Time
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Part of The Inner Chapters Unbook.
Originally part of episode number fifty one.
Dedicated audio available from Podiobooks.
Original Notes
- Compare to down time
- Deadlines
- Sometimes beyond our control
- Other times, we impose them to help inertia
- Can mark progress
- May facilitate prioritization, what makes the cut for working on right now
- Cost, features, date - pick two
- Cost is always limited by available resources
- There is a barrier beyond which adding resources won't help, anyway, see the Mythical Man Month
- Some times the date can be moved
- More reasonable is to re-negotiate features
- Most customers, internal or external, would rather receive something, even if less than original promised, then receive anything late
- If you are a contributor
- Keep your lead and/or manager up to date on any tasks that may take longer than expected
- Never suffer in silence
- The later you come forward, the less time there is for a manager to do something about it
- Overexertion usually results in diminished quality
- Remember the lesson of humility - we all make mistakes, we all need help at times
- Re-visit the requirements continually to stay in scope
- Scope creep is usually only though about during requirements negotiation
- You may be doing more than what was asked during implementation
- Building for future requirements
- Over-engineering or over-delivering on a simpler feature
- Keeps notes when you creep scope, these are good candidates for future enhancements, should go through the normal requirements process
- If you are a manager
- When prioritizing features, tasks, always build a short list of items that can be pulled if time requires
- Sets expectations early
- Helps with the decision later, gets early buy-in
- Know your resources and pad appropriately
- Keep talking to your people
- Learn of problems sooner rather than later
- Also, identify opportunities, where one task is completed early the developer in question may have time to help someone else who is behind
- Manage upwards
- Insulate your team from outside interference
- Sales
- Customers
- Filter this input and share where and how it would be appropriate
- Always have options when discussing problems
- Features to be pulled
- New resources that could help
- Alternate ways of meeting the requirements or business opportunities
- Insulate your team from outside interference
- When prioritizing features, tasks, always build a short list of items that can be pulled if time requires

