The commitment
The fully functioning product which you purchased will be delivered, installed by Nov 4th and set to go the very same day.
What happened on Nov 4th?
The product was delivered in May the following year, however it had not yet been fully tested. 60% of revenue generating features were “still in the pipeline”. The client threatens to litigate although the vendor is blaming the client for “having misled us on the level of site readiness and employee skill”.
The scribbling on the wall
No one should have been surprised because the slip was scribbled on the wall, if you just know how to read it.
Here are a few clues that will allow you to perhaps foresee the crash, albeit not prevent it.
- The client “over buys”, meaning he presses for a client commitment because he himself is in trouble. For example, the client needs to increase market share by 30% “or you are out of a job”.
- The aggressive commitment is made by shoving it down developers throats. Nay sayers are pushed aside and people with high confidence and low technical savvy take over.
- Employees indeed are willing to make aggressive commitments, but only like this: “when Silvan delivers his piece, and QA has signed off, and the real-time folks deliver their piece, I”m sure we can make it, even if it’s a bit challenging”.
- Risks, obstacles are smoothed away by fancy verbal tap-dancing. Certain things are no longer documented and status reports are cryptic and ambiguous.
- More people are thrown at the job, but the number of skilled people is in decline because the top professionals have left or checked out.
Even if you foresee all this shit happening, it still cannot be stopped. Often, this is the way that the particular business cycle functions and everyone is making lots of money despite this apparent insanity.