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January 18, 2006
Agile Project Management - Post Of The Day
On Requirements Gathering vs Developing and Building:
On the topic of building large buildings:
"In one study, 93 project managers from across the United States were asked to rate the degree of [uncertainty in project objectives, scope, and design criteria] at the beginning of construction. One would have expected uncertainty about "what to do" (determined primarily by the owner and design engineers) to be very low at the start of construction in almost every case. However, the study showed that as late as the start of construction, approximattely 80% of capital projects suffer from [that type of] uncertainty."
In follow-up discussions with the participants in this study, quite a few were surprised to learn that it is a common practice to decide 'how to do it' before completely settling on 'what to do'. Many of the participants did not realize that in their own industry overlapping objectives and means are the norm. The results of this U.S. study, which were later confirmed by two studies in Europe as well, allow us to reassure the bewildered practicing project manager that he or she is not alone." p. 44I had to smile when I read this. They think that they're substandard because they don't do all the requirements gathering up front, even though that is the norm for their industry. Is that guilt washing away? I hope so.
So, not only do manufacturing companies apparently not do big design up front, but construction projects don't do it either. It's just that in both cases, they are constrained by the laws of physics in ways that software is not, so there's fewer degrees of complexity.
(This is not to imply that non-software construction/manufacturing is easy. Just that software has an additional free variable that other fields do not)
Posted by jb at January 18, 2006 09:55 AM
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