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A Case Study in Classic Mistakes
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Mike was eating lunch in his office and looking out his window on a bright April morning. He was a technical lead for Giga Safe a medical insurance company. "Mike you got the funding for the Gigauote program! #ongratulations!" $t was %ill Mike's boss. "&he eecuti(e committee lo(ed the idea of automating our medical insurance )uotes. $t also lo(ed the idea of uploading the day's )uotes to the head office e(ery night so that we always ha(e the latest sales leads online. $'(e got a meeting now but we can discuss the details later. Good *ob on that proposal!" Mike had written the proposal for the Gigauote program months earlier but his proposal had been for a standalone +# program without any ability to communicate with the head office. ,h well. &his would gi(e him a chance to lead a clientser(er pro*ect in a modern G-$ en(ironment and that's what he wanted. &hey had almost a year to do the pro*ect and that should gi(e them plenty of time to add a new feature. Mike picked up the phone and dialed his wife's number. "Honey "Honey let's go out to dinner tonight to celebrate ..." &he net morning %ill met with Mike to discuss the pro*ect. ", %ill. /hat's up0 &his doesn't sound like )uite the same proposal $ worked on." %ill felt uneasy. Mike Mike hadn't participated in the re(isions to the proposal but there hadn't been time to in(ol(e him. ,nce the eecuti(e committee heard about the Gigauote program they'd taken o(er. "&he eecuti(e committee lo(es the idea of building software to automate medical insurance )uotes. %ut they want to be able to transfer the field )uotes into the mainframe computer automatically. And they want to ha(e the system done before our new rates take effect 1anuary 2. &hey mo(ed the softwarecomplete softwarecomplete date you proposed up from March 2 to 3o(ember 2 which shrinks your schedule to 4 months." Mike had estimated the *ob would take 25 months. He didn't think they had much chance of finishing in 4 months and he told %ill so. "6et me get this straight" Mike said. "$t sounds like you're saying that the committee added a big communications re)uirement and chopped the schedule from 25 months to 40" %ill shrugged. "$ know it will be a challenge but you're creati(e and $ think you can pull it off. &hey appro(ed the budget you wanted and adding the communications link can't be that hard. 7ou asked for 84 staffmonths and you got it. 7ou can recruit anyone you like to work on the pro*ect and increase the team si9e too." %ill told him to go talk with some other de(elopers and figure out a way to deli(er the software on time. Mike got together with #arl another technical lead and they looked for ways to shorten the schedule. "/hy don't you use #:: and ob*ectoriented design0" #arl asked. "7ou'll be more producti(e than with # and that should sha(e a month or two off the schedule." Mike thought that sounded good. #arl also knew of a reportbuilding reportbuilding tool that was supposed to cut de(elopment time in half. &he pro*ect had a lot of reports so those two changes would get them down to about nine months. &hey were due d ue for newer faster hardware too and that could sha(e off a couple of weeks. $f he could recruit really topnotch de(elopers that might bring them down to about se(en months. &hat should be close enough. Mike
took his findings back to %ill. "6ook" %ill said. "Getting the schedule down to se(en months is good but it's not good enough. &he committee was (ery clear about the simonth deadline. &hey didn't gi(e me a choice. $ can get you the new hardware you want but you and your team are going to ha(e to find some way to get the schedule down to si months or work some o(ertime to make up the difference." Mike considered the fact that his initial estimate had *ust been a ballpark guess and thought maybe he could pull it off in si months. ", %ill. $'ll hire a couple of sharp contractors for the pro*ect. Maybe we can find some people with communications eperience to help with uploading data from the +# to the mainframe." %y May 2 Mike had put a team together. 1ill Sue and &omas were solid inhouse de(elopers and they happened to be unassigned. He rounded out the team with eiko and #hip two contractors. eiko had eperience both on +#s and the kind of mainframe they would interface with. 1ill and &omas inter(iewed #hip and recommended against hiring him but Mike was impressed. He had communications eperience and was a(ailable immediately so Mike hired him anyway. At the first team meeting %ill told the team that the Gigauote program was strategically important to the Giga Safe corporation. Some of the top people in the company would be watching them. $f they succeeded there would be rewards all around. He said he was sure that they could pull it off. After %ill's pep talk Mike sat down with the team and laid out the schedule. &he eecuti(e committee had more or less handed them a specification and they would spend the net two weeks filling in the gaps. &hen they'd spend si weeks on design which would lea(e them four months for construction and testing. His seatofthepants estimate was that the final product would consist of about 8;;;; lines of code in #::. <(eryone around the table nodded agreement. $t was ambitious but they'd know that when they signed up for the pro*ect. &he net week Mike met with Stacy the testing lead. She eplained that they should begin handing product builds o(er to testing no later than September 2 and should aim to hand o(er a feature complete build by ,ctober 2. Mike agreed. &he team finished the re)uirements specification )uickly and do(e into design. &hey came up with a design that seemed to make a good use of #::'s features. &hey finished the design by 1une 2= ahead of schedule and began coding like cra9y to meet their goal of a firstreleasetotesting by September 2. &he pro*ect hadn't been entirely smooth. 3either 1ill nor &omas liked #hip and Sue had also complained that he wouldn't let anyone near his code. Mike attributed the personality clashes to the long hours e(eryone was working. 3e(ertheless by early August they reported that they were between >= and ?;percent done. $n midAugust the actuarial department released the rates for the net year and the team disco(ered that they had to accommodate an entirely new rate structure. &he new rating method re)uired them to ask )uestions about eercise habits drinking habits smoking habits recreational acti(ities and other factors that hadn't been included in the rating formulas before. #:: they thought was supposed to shield them from the effects of such changes. &hey had been counting on *ust plugging some new numbers into a ratings table. %ut they had to change the input dialogs database design database access and communications ob*ects to accommodate the ne w structure. As the team scrambled to retrofit their design Mike told Stacy that they might be a few days late releasing the first build to testing. As epected the team didn't ha(e a build ready by September 2 and Mike continued to assure Stacy
that the build was only a day or two away. @ays turned to weeks and the ,ctober 2 deadline for handing o(er the featurecomplete build to testing came and went. @e(elopment still hadn't handed o(er the first build to testing. Stacy called a meeting with %ill to discuss the schedule. "/e ha (en't gotten a build from de(elopment yet" she said. "/e were supposed to get our first build on September 2 and since we ha(en't gotten one yet they'(e got to be at least a full month behind schedule. $ think they're in trouble." "&hey're in trouble all right" %ill said. "6et me talk to the team. $'(e promised 4;; agents that they would ha(e this program by 3o(ember 2. /e ha(e to get that program out in time for the rate change." %ill called a team meeting. "&his is a fantastic team and you should be meeting your commitments" he told them. "$ don't know what's gone wrong here but $ epect e(eryone to work hard and d eli(er this software on time. 7ou can still earn your bonuses but now you're going to ha(e to work for them. As of now $'m putting all of you on a 4dayperweek 2;hourperday schedule until this software is done." After the meeting 1ill and &omas grumbled to Mike about not needing to be treated like children but they agreed to work the hours %ill wanted. &he team slipped the schedule two weeks promising a featurecomplete build by 3o(ember 2=. &hat allowed for si weeks of testing before the new rates went into effect in 1anuary. &he team released its first build to testing four weeks later on 3o(ember 2 and met to discuss a few remaining problems areas. &omas was working on report generation and had run into a roadblock. "&he )uote summary page includes a simple bar chart. $'m using a report generator that's supposed to generate bar charts but the only way it will generate them is on pages by themsel(es. /e ha(e a re)uirement from the sales group to put the tet and bar charts on the same page. $'(e figured out that $ can hack up a report with a bar chart by passing in the report tet as a legend to the barchart ob*ect. $t's definitely a hack but $ can always go back and reimplement it more cleanly after the first release." Mike responded "$ don't see where the issue is. /e ha(e to get the product out and we don't ha(e time to make the code perfect. %ill has made it crystal clear that there can't be any more slips. @o the hack." #hip reported that his communications code was ?=percent done and that it worked but he still had a few more tests to run. Mike caught 1ill and &omas rolling their eyes but he decided to ignore it. &he team worked hard through 3o(ember 2= including working almost all the way through the nights of the 2th and 2=th but they still didn't make their 3o(ember 2= release date. &he team was ehausted but on the morning of the 24th it was %ill who felt sick. Stacy had called to tell him that de(elopment hadn't released its featurecomplete build the day before. 6ast week he had told the eecuti(e committee that the pro*ect was on track. Another pro*ect manager #laire had probed into the team's progress saying that she had heard that they weren't making their scheduled releases to testing. %ill thought #laire was uptight and he didn't like her. He had assured her that his team was definitely on track to make their scheduled releases. %ill told Mike to get the team together and when he did they looked defeated. A month and a half of 4; hour weeks had taken their toll. Mike asked what time today they would ha(e the build ready but the only response he got was silence. "/hat are you telling me0" he said. "/e are going to ha(e the featurecomplete build today aren't we0"
"6ook Mike" &omas said. "$ can hand off my code today and call it 'feature complete' but $'(e probably got three weeks of cleanup work to do once $ hand it off." Mike asked what &omas meant by "cleanup." "$ ha(en't gotten the company logo to show up on e(ery page and $ ha(en't gotten the agent's name and phone number to print on the bottom of e(ery page. $t's little stuff like that. All of the important stuff works fine. $'m ??percent done." "$'m not eactly 2;;percent done either" 1ill admitted. "My old group has been calling me for technical support a lot and $'(e been spending a couple hours a day working for them. +lus $ had forgotten until *ust now that we were supposed to gi(e the agents the ability to put their names and phone numbers on the reports. $ ha(en't implemented the dialogs to input that data yet and $ still ha(e to do some of the other housekeeping dialogs too. $ didn't think we needed them to make our 'feature complete' milestone." 3ow Mike started to feel sick too. "$f $'m hearing what $ think $'m hearing you all are telling me that we're three weeks away from ha(ing feature complete software. $s that right0" "&hree weeks at least " 1ill said. &he rest of the de(elopers agreed. Mike went around the table one by one and asked the de(elopers if they could completely finish their assignments in three weeks. ,ne by one the de(elopers said that if they worked hard they thought they could make it. 6ater that day after a long uncomfortable discussion Mike and %ill agreed to slip the schedule three weeks to @ecember = as long as the team promised to work 25 hour days instead of 2;. %ill said he needed to show his boss that he was holding the de(elopment team's feet to the fire. &he re(ised schedule meant that they would ha(e to test the code and train the field agents concurrently but that was the only way they could hope to release the software by 1anuary 2. Stacy complained that that wouldn't gi(e A enough time to test the software but %ill o(erruled her. ,n @ecember = the Gigauote team handed off the featurecomplete Gigauote program to testing before noon and left work early to take a longawaited break. &hey had worked almost constantly since September 2. &wo days later Stacy released the first bug list and all hell broke loose. $n two days the testing group had identified more than 5;; defects in the Gigauote program including 58 that were classified as 'Se(erity 2''Must Bi'errors. "$ don't see any way the software will be ready to release to the field agents by 1anuary 2" she said. "$t will probably take the test group that long *ust to write the regression test cases for the defects we'(e already disco(ered and we're finding new defects e(ery hour." Mike called a staff meeting for eight o'clock the net morning. &he de(elopers were touchy. &hey said that although there were a few serious problems a lot of the reported bugs weren't really bugs at all but were misinterpretations of how the program was supposed to operate. &omas pointed to bug C28 as an eample. "&he test report for bug C28 says that on the )uote summary page the bar chart is re)uired to be on the right side of the page rather than the left. &hat's hardly a Se(2 error. &his is typical of the way that testing o(erreacts to problems." Mike distributed copies of the bug reports. He tasked the de(elopers to re(iew the bugs that testing had assigned to them and to estimate how much time it would take to fi each one. /hen the team met again that afternoon the news wasn't good. "Dealistically $ would estimate that $ ha(e two weeks' worth of work *ust to fi the bugs that ha(e already been reported" Sue said. "+lus $ still ha(e to finish the referential integrity checks in the database. $'(e got four weeks of work right total."
&omas had assigned bug C28 back to testing changing its priority from Se(2 to Se(8"#osmetic #hange." &esting had responded that Gigauote's summary reports had to match similar reports generated by the mainframe policyrenewal program which were also similar to preprinted marketing materials that the company had used for many years. &he company's 4;; agents were accustomed to gi(ing their sales pitches with the bar chart on the right and it had to stay on the right. &he bug stayed at Se(2 and that created a problem. "Demember the hack $ used to get the bar chart and the report to print on the same page in the first place0" &omas asked. "&o put the bar chart on the right $ will ha(e to rewrite this particular report from scratch which means that $ will ha(e to write my own lowle(el code to do the report formatting and graphics." Mike cringed and asked for a ballpark estimate of how long all that would take. &omas said it would take at least 2; days but he would ha(e to look into it more before he would know for sure. %efore he went home for the day Mike told Stacy and %ill that the team would work through the holidays and ha(e all of the reported defects fied by 1anuary E. %ill said he had a lmost been epecting this one and appro(ed a fourweek schedule slip before lea(ing for the fourweek #aribbean cruise he had been planning since the pre(ious summer. Mike spent the net four weeks holding the troops together. Bor four months they had been working as hard as it was possible to work and he didn't think he could push them any harder. &hey were at the office 25 hours a day but they were spending a lot of time reading maga9ines paying bills and talking on the phone. &hey seemed to make a point of getting irritable whene(er he asked how long it would take to get the bug count down. Bor e(ery bug they fied testing disco(ered two new ones. %ugs that should ha(e taken minutes to fi had pro*ectwide implications and took days instead. &hey soon reali9ed there was no way they could fi all of the defects by 1anuary E. ,n 1anuary E %ill returned from his (acation and Mike told him that the de(elopment team would need another four weeks. "Get serious" %ill said. "$'(e got 4;; field agents who are tired of getting *erked around by a bunch of computer guys. &he eecuti(e committee is talking about canceling the pro*ect. 7ou ha(e to find a way to deli(er the software within the net two weeks no matter what." Mike called a team meeting to discuss their options. He told them about %ill's ultimatum and asked for a ballpark estimate of when they could release the product first *ust in weeks then in months. &he team was silent. 3o one would ha9ard a guess about when they might finally release the product. Mike didn't know what to tell %ill. After the meeting #hip told Mike that he had accepted a contract with a different company that started Bebruary 8. Mike began to feel that it would be a relief if the pro*ect were canceled. Mike got ip the programmer who had been responsible for the mainframe side of the +#to mainframe communications reassigned to help out on the pro*ect and assigned him to fi bugs in the +# communications code. After struggling with #hip's code for a week ip reali9ed that it contained some deep conceptual flaws that meant it could ne(er work. ip was forced to redesign and reimplement the +# side of the +#tomainframe communications link. As %ill rambled on at an eecuti(e meeting in the middle of Bebruary #laire finally decided that she had heard enough and called a "stop work" on the Gigauote program. She met with Mike on Briday. "&his pro*ect is out of control" she said. "$ ha(en't gotten a reliable schedule estimate from %ill for months. &his was a simonth pro*ect and it's now more than three months late with no end in sight. $'(e looked o(er the bug statistics and the team isn't closing the gap. 7ou're all working such long hours that you're not e(en making progress anymore. $ want you all to take the weekend offF then $ want you to de(elop a detailed stepbystep report that includes e(erythingand $ do mean everything that remains to be done on that pro*ect. $ don't want you to force fit the pro*ect into an artificial schedule. $f it's going to take
another nine months $ want to know that. $ want that report by endofwork /ednesday. $t doesn't ha(e to be fancy but it does ha(e to be complete." &he de(elopment team was glad to ha(e the weekend off and they attacked the detailed report with renewed energy the net week. $t was on #laire's desk /ednesday. She had the report re(iewed by #harles a software engineering consultant who also re(iewed the pro*ect's bug statistics. #harles recommended that the team focus its efforts on a handful of errorprone modules that it immediately institute design and code re(iews for all bug fies and that the team start working regular hours so that they could get an accurate measure of how much effort was being epended on the pro*ect and how much would be needed to finish. &hree weeks later in the first week in March the openbug count had ticked down a notch for the first time. &eam morale had ticked up a notch and based on the steady progress being made the consultant pro*ected that the software could be deli(eredfully tested and reliableby May 2=. Since Giga Safe's semiannual rate increase would go into effect 1uly 2 #laire set the official launch date for 1une 2. Post Mortem
