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Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

kevinlynagh.com

21–30 of 159 posts

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#21

Incidentally, this describes what I believe to be the great difficulty of PhD research. You have to take a topic you find interesting and read all possible related work in it, which tends to result in significant scope creep as you realize just how much there is that already does you want to do. Having exhausted your initial energy and excitement for the project, you have to force yourself the remaining 20-30% of he…

Day 1: We aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of an existing industrial catalyst in a novel application that has not seen commercial usage, potentially lowering cost of production of precursors for essential medications Day 400: Having thoroughly described a universal theory of everything, we set out to build an experimental apparatus in orbit at a Lagrange point capable of detecting a universal particle which acts…

Hahaha so well said, can relate during my thesis

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man I feel that in my bones. Any advice on how to mitigate this?

I worked at a chair for 12 years - in that time I've seen a lot of PhD students go through this. If it helps anything at all: It's normal. At this point, you've already proven you're smart and knowledgeable. Now, the universe wants to see if you can also finish what you've started. That's the main thing a PhD proves: That you can take an incredibly interesting topic and then do all the boring stuff that they need you…

It's been a long long time since I was the academic research world - but isn't 3 published papers pretty much the expectation for a PhD quantity of research?

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#23
Over planning and scope creep are a problem, but let's not swing the pendulum to far the other way. Some of my most successful projects were projects where I planned out and worked through most of the features ahead of time through the process of modeling my data without any working software to try out. When I'm in that phase, I often don't really know what is too much. If I leave out features I think I or the users will probably want, I spend a lot of time with significant redesign of core aspects of the code. If I'm wrong, the project gets too big and we chalk it up to scope creep.

My ability to get this right is often a matter of how well I know the domain. If I don't know the domain as well I think I do, I fall into a lot of rework. If I know the domain more than I imagine then I waste my time with a baby step process when I could have run. All of this is a big judgement call, and I have "regrets" in both directions.

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#24

Incidentally, this describes what I believe to be the great difficulty of PhD research. You have to take a topic you find interesting and read all possible related work in it, which tends to result in significant scope creep as you realize just how much there is that already does you want to do. Having exhausted your initial energy and excitement for the project, you have to force yourself the remaining 20-30% of he…

[deleted]

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#25
post #4

I think this should've been two separate blog posts.

Yeah, it’s funny how all the comments so far are only talking about the over-engineering and scope creep, when the bulk of the blog was dedicated to a totally separate rant (but a good one!) on structural diffing.

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#26
Funnily this aligns perfectly with the WW2 era CIA Sabotaging handbook https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...

Organizations and Conferences:

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

2. Make “speeches,” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.

3. When possible refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration”. Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five.

4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

7. Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision – raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

Managers and Supervisors:

1. Demand written orders.

2. “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.

3. Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of the order may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver it until its completely ready.

4. Don’t order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

5. Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don’t get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.

6. In making work assignments, always sing out the unimportant jobs first. See that important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers with poor equipment.

7. Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products send back for refinishing those which have the least flaws. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.

8. Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant.

9. When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

10. To lower moral and with it production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

11. Hold meetings when there is critical work to be done.

12. Multiply paperwork in plausible ways. Start duplicating files.

13. Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, making payments, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

14. Apply all regulations to the last letter.

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#28
Definitely have found myself in a similar situation in fact most of the times option 2 happens. I too have caught myself just thinking rather than building and glad I am not the only one who repeatedly tells himself I should just build it rather than enter the rabbit hole of what is out there.

Re: Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing

#30

Over planning and scope creep are a problem, but let's not swing the pendulum to far the other way. Some of my most successful projects were projects where I planned out and worked through most of the features ahead of time through the process of modeling my data without any working software to try out. When I'm in that phase, I often don't really know what is too much. If I leave out features I think I or the users…

You worry too much about being wrong. Just try something and adjust as needed.
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