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Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

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Re: Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

#141

Post by gascan »

ljw1001 wrote: post #51

This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…

Caveat, this seems to play out fine if the project slips 10-20%, which is sort of within expectation, and your competitors may be slipping the same amount as we speak.

If however the project is due to slip 200%, or 400%- I guess I don't have specific advice, but that kind of project is the sort of project that can sink a company. Of course, you only really get to that point if vice-bigwigs are lying severely to the bigwigs, in which case there may be nothing a team lead can do about it.

Re: Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

#142

Post by hashkb »

tootie wrote: post #112
ljw1001 wrote: post #51

This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…

Disagree. Just be real. When I joined my current company, they had a project kicking off with a ridiculously short timeline. I asked the product manager to think about how many stories were in the backlog, how many might be added as we went, how many stories they could get through per sprint given the team capacity and then you can put a rough date on it and continue adjusting every sprint as the backlog shrinks and…

Being real can be a massive mistake when management is more concerned with preserving management than revenue. It's pretty common, and experienced managers are way better at getting you out than at fixing problems. (Well, they see it as one and the same)

Re: Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

#143

Post by blablabla123 »

ljw1001 wrote: post #51

This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…

> Third, people do shoot the bearer of bad news. You can earn

> a rep as a negative person if you make _true_ predictions

> out-loud that don't fit the common desire.

I've heard this very often, both as advise, complaint and even in an intimidating manner. And yes, I've seen this, people who stay kind of positive stay in their position even if they screw up a project completely so it has to be "rebooted". In fact I've also observed a super negative person, being a colleague of mine for 2.5 years and staying good with everybody despite one screwed up project.

On the other hand people have put me in various settings under high pressure to keep my mouth shut both internally and externally. (That was only in the startup/co-founding setting though.)

My conclusion: I'd take this advice with a biiiiiiig grain of salt. In my experience people get away with everything as long as they stay confident and keep their shit together.

Disclaimer: I'm not a team lead

Re: Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

#144

Post by dawidw »

JackFr wrote: post #138
kakwa_ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take your estimation of the work to do, multiply it by 2. Surprisingly, it works relatively well to estimate how long the project will actually take.

My business sponsor claimed to always take my estimate, double it and bump the units. 3 hrs => 6 days 2 days => 4 weeks

So how would he estimate 1 year project?

Re: Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

#146

Post by jobu »

ljw1001 wrote: post #51

This is not going to be like the other advice you get, but I've managed many projects in different organizations and I think it is sound. First and foremost, don't sound any alarms. Many organizations have common characteristics in this regard. First, they don't expect you to be on time. Sales may think you're going to launch on time, but it's in their financial interest to think so. The rest of the org probably made…

> Be prepared with details, but if he/she doesn't ask for them, don't provide any.

Also be prepared with solutions. Any decent manager or product owner is going to ask things like: "What's a realistic timeline?" or "What could be cut to get closer to the timeline?"

It would worry me more if they didn't ask details. In my experience that means they sent you on a fools errand expecting you to fail and take the heat for it.

Re: Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

#149

Post by misthop »

dawidw wrote: post #144
JackFr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My business sponsor claimed to always take my estimate, double it and bump the units. 3 hrs => 6 days 2 days => 4 weeks

So how would he estimate 1 year project?

Hopefully no one is looking at a project and saying "that will take a year". You estimate tasks and that gives you a project timeline. Those tasks get the double and bump.

Or say 2 decades and get all the praise when you come in under time and budget.

Re: Ask HN: As a team lead how to handle project going off the rails?

#150

Post by kakwa_ »

crispyambulance wrote: post #137
kakwa_ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take your estimation of the work to do, multiply it by 2. Surprisingly, it works relatively well to estimate how long the project will actually take.

Those multiply by whatever factor estimates are perhaps defensible if you're talking about a few person-hours for a small no-bid project. It falls apart if you're talking about 10's to 100's of people working for weeks/months/years, or wherever you need to compete with other vendors for the contract.

For those projects, everybody is over-optimistic in their respective bids (some could say they are basically lying...). But that's part of the game unfortunately.

However sometimes, it can be a calculated risk, for most projects, something is provided by the client, and generally they are also late on their parts. If played correctly it can hide delays on your side.

Also, being over-optimistic in a bid doesn't mean you have to be over-optimistic internally, you could set realistic expectations internally and "manage" properly the delays on the customer front.

Just to be clear, this is a cynic view of things. Every time I see something like that, I cringe inside (and even outside).

However the 2x rule can be quite limited in big projects as it doesn't account for the overhead induced by the size. In a team of hundreds, 30, 40 or 50% of the efforts can be lost due to difficulties in communication, management layers, heterogeneous set of competencies and skills, etc. It's harder to identify what this overhead could be. They can be huge differences between relatively well integrated teams and a complete mess.

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