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Summary: Pay attention to the political aspects of your project
Review: The book illustrates that politics exists in your project as well. To determine all major political players, involved in the project is the task of any participant: from the stakeholder and project manager to the minor developer. It's a hard task to spot all the players, but once you did it, your project will get more chances to survive and you will keep your sanity. This book doesn't have easy answers, but it will encourage you to start analyzing things which you never thought about, it will encourage adaptive work on yourself.Because this book is encouraging, but not practical, I would recommend "Software Project Survival Guide" by Steve McConnell and "Agile Software Development" by Alistair Cockburn prior to reading this book.
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Summary: Death March Got Boring
Review: This is a reality check for those contemplating or embarking upon a death march. Evaluate the situation before making the decision to join a death march team. Consider the personal and professional sacrifices. The introduction is too long, I sat the book down several times.
The book contains relavent information, and should be required reading for undregraduate and graduates, but perhaps a condensed version. Hopefully the students will have instructors that will assign section in order to cut down on the repetition.
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Summary: Death March Review
Review: In his book Yourdon is brutality honest about the disvantages of a Death March project (nearly impossible IT projects to complete - like salmon swimming up stream)and the negative effects they have on the participates. One can learn something even from the negative events of this kind of project. I do think the book should be required reading for potential project managers and developers in undergraduate and graduate schools, so that they may evaluate or rethink their options about some phases of the IT career field.
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Summary: Just the facts!
Review: As a survivor of a "Death March" project myself, this book clearly lets the reader know what a death march project is all about. This book is a must read for those in software development who are involved with or are contemplating a new software engineering project that "promises to deliver everything including the kitchen sink, but you know has no realistic chance of succeeding". This book is a must read for both present and future project managers who will eventually become involved in a death march project. Death March projects are truly becoming the norm and we had all better be prepared for them.
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Summary: If you're reading this book, find another job
Review: While there are projects that are Olympian in nature in every field, and there are reasons to take on projects with high risks, the majority of "urgent" software projects are based false perceptions. This book describes how to survive in a self-imposed state of pain, suffering and lower life quality. If you have no choices, the book is really helpful. If you have a choice, there are software development organizations who have performed the cranial-rectal inversion and are willing to bring like-minded people on board. You don't have to settle for a death march career.
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Summary: Useful for tips 'n' tricks
Review: This is not a typical project manager's toolkit. I read this book when it first came out, and I found some of the anectdotes and tips helpful as I grew as a software project manager. There are excellent, practical suggestions about maintaining peace and harmony amongst team members, and back at home. One of the most eye-opening suggestions at the time for me was his characterization of requirements -gathering- vs. requirements -negotiation-. This is a subtle though important difference, and can dramatically change the situation to one more favorable for the development team. A light, recommended read.
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Summary: Practical book on how to survive Mission Impossible projects
Review: I've recently read a lot of books on the new Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) defacto object oriented software development process, Rational Unified Process (RUP), the Object Management Groups new standard visual modeling language, Unified Modeling Language (UML), and good books on software architecture, however, Edward Yourdon's Death March is the most practical book with real world advice on how to handle yourself on projects that are 50% to 100% more aggressive on schedule, budget or staffing resources than "normal" projects. This book's perspectives makes it informative for not just project managers and their development staff but should also provide insight to senior management in both the customer and development organizations. Any person who will have either a vested outcome (stakeholder) in a difficult project or is involved in the decision making (shareholder) of a death march project, should find this book an invaluable resource. Yourdon classifies death march projects into four types: 1) ugly style projects where there are expected casualties and project failure. 2) Suicide projects where the project has no chance of success but is established and staffed by persons with company loyalty and the belief that the company's continued survival is dependant on the team's last chance effort to save it. 3) Kamikaze style projects that are going to result in the destruction of the project team and staff but can result in the greater good of the company, if successful. 4.) The Mission Impossible project style is the most attractive type of death march because even though the odds are steeply weighed against success, a superb project manager with top notch developers on the team can pull off the impossible and become heroes in the company. The Mission Impossible project type is the most desirable death march project because the project team is eager to take on the challenge and possibly learn and use new exciting technologies in the process. Despite the fact that the chance of success is slim, it's possible to win with the right people Not only is Yourdon's Death March informative on all possible project participant perspectives on what to do when confronted with a death march project, it is written by one the leading industry pundits and is a great enjoyable read.
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Summary: What we've been waiting for
Review: Lots of good stuff in here.
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Summary: How to improve your chances against impossible odds
Review: A death march is a software development project where the participants are working excruciating hours in an attempt to achieve a goal that is most likely impossible. There is nothing new about this in the human experience. Most of our myths, legends and success stories are based on people emerging from such circumstances. The reasons for our willingness to voluntarily enter into such projects go to the very heart of what makes us human. In most cases, there is the prospect of a significant reward if successful, both monetarily and the satisfaction of accomplishment. We strive for success, pushing ourselves to the limits, so that we will truly know what those limits are.
The technical fields are filled with stories of extraordinary success, with the most pronounced being in computing. Enormous fortunes have been earned by those who kept the faith and worked to exhaustion to create a valuable product that they can be proud of. However, like everything in the free market economy, for every success there are an untold number of crash and burn failures. The key for anyone contemplating joining such a project is to determine what the chances of success really are and that is the main point of the book.
Yourdon concentrates on those factors that largely determine whether the project has a chance of success. These factors can be summed up into a few key points.
1) Collect a committed group of overachievers who understand the odds and consequences of success and failure.
2) Have a manager who is willing to place their career on the line, even to the point where they may have to make forceful suggestions to higher level managers.
3) The manager must also be able to control who works on the project and prevent people from being assigned to it simply because they are incompetent in any other capacity.
4) Make sure that the project is not there simply to score points, get even or be a target for sabotage by others wishing to advance up the corporate chart by climbing over others.
While some projects may have succeeded without one of these points being true, it is hard to believe that that is the case. Projects that fit the criteria of a death march are becoming the norm in computing, particularly in the arena of small businesses. The growth of the Internet has led to the new type of scheduling known as "Internet time" , where iterations of products are now measured in months rather than years. Since this is the new reality, there is nothing to be done except adapt to it or change careers. Yourdon makes it clear how such projects must be approached, from the tester up to the senior manager and it would be risky not to follow his advice. His simple, yet effective breaking down of the projects into four simple categories is an excellent way to determine what your chances of success really are.
Many of the greatest successes in the history of computing are based on "impossible" projects succeeding, which is no different from the rest of the human experience. While luck always plays a part in such successes, most of the time it is due to hard work, dedication and preparation, things that we can control. Nearly everyone who is currently in the computing field will at some point be a part of a death march project. Like all extremely difficult tasks, the only hope for success is to enter with open eyes and know what it takes to increase the chances of success. This book will help you with the latter. The first is up to you.
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Summary: Don¿t become a death march causality!
Review: A death-march project may be seen as a modern day chariot-racing event where the project manager is the gladiator with the whip, and the software development team is the expendable pack of horses pulling the chariot forward at dangerous speed. In order to maximize the chances of succeeding or at least surviving in a death march project - where most civilized rules of behavior have been stripped away - you need to read and understood the basic truths, brutal facts, and time-proven tactics that are explained in this insightful little book. The only fault I can find with this book is that it appears to have been written as a stripped-down death march project of its own. Many areas could use more elaboration to achieve better coverage of the subject matter.
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