I saw the following attributed to Ralph Johnson. I’m not sure if that’s the Gang of Four Ralph Johnson, but it probably is: The problem is that almost all software schedules and budgets are bogus. They are created for political effect and have little relationship to reality. Thus, whether they are met has nothing to do with the people working on the project. Who makes your schedules? Project managers? They are almost certainly the wrong people. You can’t predict how long something will take unless you are an expert at doing it. The programmers? Are they allowed to say “we don’t have enough information to make a prediction”? Are they ever told “that is too long, you’ll have to do it in six months”? The only way to get honest schedules is from people who have experience in doing the work who know that they need to get the schedule… Read more →