[Quote:]
Tom DeMarco has turned 180o, finally! As one of the initiators and most prolific proponents, if not principle responsibles of the software engineering myth, he finally sees his erring ways. After selling a fuckton of books on software-engineering like “Peopleware,” “Deadline,” “Controlling Software Projects,” and “Waltzing with Bears.” he now, finally, takes his distance. A bit late after 40 years, but I guess, the money was too good. He, at long last, acknowledges the folly of his most famous quote: “You can’t control what you can’t measure.” Never came so much stress to so many coders from so few words. Pity he does not apologize profoundly, but still it is good that he basically tells the world he has been wrong and misinterpreted. Finally he acknowledges, what all real-life-coders knew all along, “the more you focus on control, the more likely you’re working on a project that’s striving to deliver something of relatively minor value.“ (Tom DeMarco) [Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?] It is ending the era of the software engineering myth. It has hit the community hard, just look at a few reactions: CH, iTwire, Stackoverflow, Software Architecture, Never In Doubt.
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I am just afraid that now it will be “Tom DeMarco said you don’t need control on project!” and that will be just as bad – if not worse.
@Roland: I agree. But in my opinion, it’s a matter of granularity. Personally I think it is impossible to control the day to day coding but very possible to control the version management, expectations, non-coding aspects of a project, etc. A coding project is more project than coding, and the project needs some managing, the coding has to run free though in roughly the right direction. I firmly believe in the incremental method. In my experience managers tend to let the project run free whilst trying to control (pico manage) the coding.
Jan-Mark, you won’t hear me arguing about your points
I believe in the process of hire the right people for the job, then let them do what they were hired to do. If your hiring process is good, then you don’t have to pico-manage. Or micro-manage.