It used to be said, of a demanding, but uninformed boss, that they were a pointy-haired boss… after a certain comic. Does this still happen in your projects?
Not specifically the affectionate (!) title, but more than issue of a boss that has demands, but is ill-informed about what things are that they’re asking for.
When we’re talking with project groups, I have to admit, it runs the full range, still today. People that have heard about a feature, or seen a headline, and want that functionality. At the same time, in a good number of cases, the stakeholders can also be more informed that we would traditionally have been exposed to. Sure, not a full knowledge of the systems and how things are done (that’s our collective job, after all), but more on the order of understanding that certain things do indeed have to be addressed.
For example, it wasn’t very long ago that bringing up performance tuning as a specific deliverable in the project cycles was just sort of set aside. It was one of the first things to go when schedules started to compress. Now, bringing it up and having it finely woven into the structure of the overall effort is a generally accepted function.
This holds true for other things, including security. But what I do find interesting with security is that so many times it’s a checkbox, almost a “there, we talked about it and are thinking about it!” type of thing. Pushing to really dig in and deal with access controls, encryption, all those bits usually is sacrificed to the gods of time and delivery as one of the first impaired steps, at least in my experience. We really have to fight to keep it as a priority.
Do you see this with other things we collectively get involved with with regards to the data platform? What areas have come along nicely in understanding? What areas are abandoned or minimized first if schedules are compromised?
It seem like project tend to start well with the planning and design, then the realities of sprints and releases and testing and development and, yes, pointy-haired bosses, come into play and things get shaved back to keep things flowing. It’s a matter of how much, and how much sway the team has over which items are modified, that really drives the project home.
What do you see in your own projects?