| Head First PMP authors Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene talk through the ways that software projects fail, using the signature humor and insight in the acclaimed "Head First" series. There's an old saying: "There's only one way to succeed, but a million ways to fail." But that saying just isn't true when it comes to software projects. As it turns out, there are a small number of ways that projects fail, and they'll sound eerily familiar to any project manager, software engineer or programmer who's been around for more than a few years. Many software projects that started out as a small, stopgap utility turn into raging behemoths, sucking seemingly unlimited time from your programmers. Or the president of your company announced that your project will be done this week, even though you know that it still has an enormous number of bugs. Or your team delivered the software, only to have users complain that an entire feature is missing. Or every time the team fixes a bug, they seem to uncover a dozen more--including ones that you know were fixed six months ago. Once you know how projects fail, you can do what you need to do to keep them on track. |