false economies

[fingertrouble]

depressed, bored, tired, that's me at the moment...

Annoyed also because I'm working on this project where they got in work experience / 15 year old kids related to people here to 'help out'. All very cuddly and nice...

I'm now having to go through the work and sort out all the shit they left in the Flash files and bad job they both did.

Sometimes I do think the classic project management panic mantra of 'more people = better' is the biggest piece of puerile bullshit ever - many projects I've worked on would've been better promising a more realistic deadline and have less people tripping over each other and having to cover for other people's (usually well meaning but) shit work. 1-2 people full-time on this project would've been better than the crap I'm now having to clean up...

False economy? Oh yeah. Also sparkly lights, fireworks and smoke and mirrors to look like action is happening and purely make the project manager and/or client feel that 'something is being done! progress is being made!'...Sometimes it just takes longer, especially to do a good job? No amount of extra people or resource or fretting stress puppy project managers in a row praying to the god of Project Management with worry beads and/or commiting hari-kiri can assuage that.

Comments

[why-a-duck.livejournal.com]

That seems to be a common solution to all business problems - Just throw more people at it. More trained, capable-of-wiping-their-own-arses people would be nice, but I always get the type who have trouble with the whole inhale-exhale bit. I then spend half of my time bringing them up to speed just so they can slow me down with inane questions later on.

[paddbear.livejournal.com]

Find a copy of The Mythical Man-Month if you can and read it for some good advice and arguments.

I remember a manager at Microsoft saying, after being told to hire more writers to make sure a project was done in less time, "If I get one woman pregnant, there'll be a baby in nine months. If I get nine women pregnant, it doesn't mean that I'll have a baby in one month."