Classic Mistakes in Development
By Steve McConnell
http://blogs.construx.com/blogs/stevemcc/archive/2007/06/15/Classic-Mistakes-Updated.aspx
Confusing estimates with targets
Excessive multi-tasking
Assuming global development has a negligible impact on total effort
Unclear project vision
Trusting the map more than the terrain
Outsourcing to reduce cost
Letting a team go dark (replaces the previous “lack of management controls”)
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People-Related Mistakes |
Process-Related Mistakes |
Product-Related Mistakes |
Technology-Related Mistakes |
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1. Undermined motivation 2. Weak personnel 3. Uncontrolled problem employees 4. Heroics 5. Adding people to a late project 6. Noisy, crowded offices 7. Friction between developers and customers 8. Unrealistic expectations 9. Lack of effective project sponsorship 10. Lack of stakeholder buy-in 11. Lack of user input 12. Politics placed over substance 13. Wishful thinking |
14. Overly optimistic schedules 16. Insufficient risk management 17. Contractor failure Insufficient planning 18. Abandonment of planning under pressure 19. Wasted time during the fuzzy front end 20. Shortchanged upstream activities 21. Inadequate design 22. Shortchanged quality assurance 23. Insufficient management controls 24. Premature or too frequent convergence 25. Omitting necessary tasks from estimates 26. Planning to catch up later 27. Code-like-hell programming |
28. Requirements gold-plating 29. Feature creep 30. Developer gold-plating 31. Push me, pull me negotiation 32. Research-oriented development |
33. Silver-bullet syndrome 34. Overestimated savings from new tools or methods 35. Switching tools in the middle of a project 36. Lack of automated source |
