I push in just one direction, not in every direction.
Rita Levi-Montalcini, Scientist
Some day, you’ll be the PM or a team member on a death march project. You have my sympathies. And, here are some thoughts on surviving.
Ed Yourdon, writer and software guru, came up with the expression of the ‘death march’ software development project.
This is not the project you want to be on. Nevertheless, sooner than later you’ll find yourself on one. This is what you’ll find in a ‘death march’ project:
- Mission impossible project has a low chance of success and a low degree of satisfaction.
- High impact project has a high chance of success but everyone feels miserable.
- Kamikaze project where everybody knows the project will fail but team members feel good about it.
- Suicide project, where everyone knows it’ll fail, but they gotta march on because no one has the guts to kill it.
Here’s the irony. What makes ‘death march’ projects so useless is that almost every knows the project was over scoped, over promised, under resourced, and under budgeted, but no one is ready to pull the plug. Why? Politics is usually the answer.
Life Lesson Earned: ‘Death March’ projects are becoming the norm. Recognize the signs and the traps. If you’re a team member or support the team, rescope your piece of the engagement so it is doable or develop a Plan B to leave the project. Life’s too short.