80
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
And not only are they suppose to correct them, they are suppose to
correct them on their own time without impacting plans.
This is your problem. Why don't your plans include the time for fixing ...
- 3,525
54
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Just as a side note to the other good answers - developers tend to have minds that look at process and (un)consciously find ways to game it.
What you are training your developers to do here is to not ...
- 641
48
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Over the last year we've become pretty hardcore in adopting the principal that an engineers must fix their own defects (those found internally and those that escape to the end users). Not only are ...
- 8,428
29
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
This is a troubling post. Your company is penalizing its workers for what is a normal and expected occurrence--performance variability. The whole reason to "punish" someone is for a behavior change, ...
- 37.1k
18
votes
Do projects ever end early?
While in most projects, the work can expand to fill up some or most of the 'extraneous' time, for many products things are simply done when they're done. In software development, when the product is ...
- 373
18
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Aside from the main issue you are asking about, there's also something a little concerning about this part: "defects (those found internally and those that escape to the end users)" I don't see ...
- 281
17
votes
How to execute a project with two resources where you need three resources?
Kick the ball upstairs immediately
You have a project that is going to fail. You don't have any way of solving this.
If you just tried various things and let the three months pass, you will end up ...
- 271
16
votes
Do projects ever end early?
Parkinson's Law and Student Syndrome. These two concepts I believe truly impacts our work. There's validity in "challenging" the team by constraining the planning values that the team thinks they ...
- 37.1k
15
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
The short answer: No, it isn't!
The not-as-short answer:
Your company has come up with the idea that the existence of bugs is a professional failure on the part of the developer. This is not true.
...
- 151
10
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
"Hardcore" indeed. I don't have much to add to the other good answers, but I'll relate an experience of my own as a developer. I worked for a company in which the culture was similar to what you are ...
- 201
10
votes
Accepted
What's the role of a Resource Manager in Agile?
A resource manager as a organiser of day to day productivity has no place on an agile team. We know why they don't belong, it's in your question. They're trying to optimise things that oughtn't to be ...
- 1,255
9
votes
Accepted
How to justify sprints in a largely reactive business?
Context switching is expensive, however Scrum may not be the correct framework for the situation you are describing. You may want to consider transitioning to a Kanban framework.
Kanban is more ...
- 3,932
9
votes
Do projects ever end early?
Is it a good idea to try and use Parkinson's Law to increase productivity. No. (Disclaimer: I'm going to assume you're talking about software projects, not rock breaking or something)
Read an extract ...
- 1,255
9
votes
Strategy for whole team switching tehnologies
Don't do this.
Speaking as a developer, this sounds great. We get to rewrite that horrible old spaghetti code from scratch! We get to paid to learn a new language! There's a mandate for quality, so ...
- 14.8k
8
votes
Accepted
How to schedule back and front-end developers based on story points?
If I've interpreted correctly, your Question is how to convert Story Point estimations for User Stories into time-estimations for each individual developer.
My answer?
Don't.
The only possible ...
- 14.8k
8
votes
About the claim that adding more developers to a team does not make delivery faster
I've always heard (and experienced) it as "Adding more developers to a late project will make it later."
Every new developer requires ramp-up time to be familiarized with the project's architecture, ...
- 14.8k
8
votes
How to execute a project with two resources where you need three resources?
If this is an interview question, I'm fairly certain that what they were looking for was how you handle being presented an impossible scenario.
Effectively what they asked you was this: You have a ...
- 16.9k
8
votes
What's the role of a Resource Manager in Agile?
There is no 'Resource Manager' role in Scrum
The question that you are quoting has the 'scrum' and 'scrum-master' tags. How do I manage development with testing and get proper reporting in JIRA?
So, ...
- 11.1k
7
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
This practice is good way to drive out your best and brightest, leaving you with a skeleton crew of your bottom performers. I have developed software for generation 4&5 fighter jets and managed ...
- 201
7
votes
About the claim that adding more developers to a team does not make delivery faster
It sounds like the idea you're concerned about is a rather over-simplified version of the point raised by Fred Brooks in the (rightly) famous essay The Mythical Man-Month. What Brooks pointed out is ...
- 226
7
votes
How to execute a project with two resources where you need three resources?
So there are usually several parameters on a project that can vary:
Budget
Schedule
Scope
Risk
Resources
Quality
You've ruled out three of them, so think abut what the others can do:
Sacrifice ...
- 476
7
votes
What's the role of a Resource Manager in Agile?
If the role of Resource Manager in your organization is seen as maximizing measurable activity instead of produced value, you've got a serious problem. You're going to create more waste by keeping ...
- 1,232
6
votes
Resource conflict handling
Both projects should have business cases tied to them. It should be relatively straight-forward for an appropriate authority to use these together with knowledge of your organization's priorities and ...
- 8,899
6
votes
Do projects ever end early?
If you don't pad the estimate, you'll be forced to manage risks.
Padding the estimate is merely a coarse strategic reserve of time. Not sure how you do the pad, but I understand it is common to ...
- 8,728
6
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
In addition to others, I also find this post disturbing.
I've seen Project Managers want to place all sort of metrics on developers, but never on themselves, Product Managers, QA, management, etc. It ...
- 61
5
votes
Do projects ever end early?
Based on my experience as a developer for over 15 years, if there seems to be ample time in the planning to deliver, then it is quite common that developers lose focus a bit. They might be tempted to ...
- 2,760
5
votes
Do projects ever end early?
Why do you think an artificial deadline will act as an incentive? In my experience (and Dilbert's), the worker bees can sniff out a fake deadline in minutes, and pretty much ignore it unless there's ...
- 161
5
votes
Do projects ever end early?
YES, PROJECTS DO END EARLY when they avoid "classic mistakes", do all the fundamentals of development, and also correctly apply "best practices".
I remember reading Steve McConnell's "Rapid ...
5
votes
Developer is stuck, now what?
Communicate Project Status to Strategic Leadership
I am unable to deliver a project because the developer is stuck on a problem for the past 3 days. It looks like he can't actually solve it.
If ...
- 49.8k
5
votes
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
Defects are part of software development cycle. It certainly cannot be blamed on just a single person. The whole chain is responsible.
Any found defect should be categorized and prioritized. Then it ...
- 5,533
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible