sotto.org

Here’s a real world example of a big-time Project Management fuckup: the complete breakdown of the Voters News Service (VNS) during the November 2002 elections. This is so textbook it’s not even funny: a mixture of poor communication among people and politics (of the workplace variety) with no clear person with final authority over everything, not to mention a technology consulting firm in way over their competency level. Add to it massive database reimplemention from big iron RDBMSes to one even bigger. This is mission impossible for the amount of time they gave themselves if I’ve ever read it, although I always remember that old adage, nothing is impossible given enough time and money. I wonder if any one involved ever read Death March by Edward Yourdon?