Surviving Object-Oriented Projects: A Manager's Guide

By: A. Cockburn
Published in: Addison-Wesley, 1998
Category: Organization and Process

Summary: Strategies for managing, staffing, and building a development organization.

Url: http://members.aol.com/acockburn/riskcata/riskbook.htm

Pattern: Clear the Fog

Pages: 206-207

You don't know the issues well enough to put together a sound plan, so deliver something. This will tell you the real issues.

• This pattern has Early and Regular Delivery, Microcosm, and Prototype as specializations.

Pattern: Early and Regular Delivery

Pages: 208-209

You don't know what problems you will encounter during development, so deliver something early. Discover what you don't know you don't know. Deliver regularly and improve each time.

• Clear the Fog is the general expression of this strategy.

Pattern: Prototype

Pages: 210-211

You don't know how some design decision will work out, so build an isolated solution and discover how it really works.

• Clear the Fog is the general expression of this strategy.
• This pattern expresses the same intent as Prototype [Coplien95b], Prototype a First-Pass Design, and Prototypes
• This pattern has a different intent from Prototype [Gamma+95], which is a creational pattern where objects clone themselves.

Pattern: Microcosm

Pages: 212-213

You have to create a plan but have never done this sort of project, so run an 8- to 12-week instrumented pilot to get productivity and throughput data for your plan.

• Clear the Fog is the general expression of this strategy.

Pattern: Holistic Diversity

Pages: 214-216

Development of a subsystem requires many skills, but people specialize, so create a team from multiple specialties.

• Owner per Deliverable ensures that someone owns each required deliverable.
• Diversity of Membership ensures that a requirements gathering team includes users.

Pattern: Gold Rush

Pages: 218-219

You don't have time to wait for requirements to settle, so start design and programming immediately. Adjust requirements weekly.

• Holistic Diversity is a prerequisite for fast, effective communication.

Pattern: Owner per Deliverable

Pages: 220-221

Be sure every deliverable has one and only one owner.

• This is a general strategy with specializations: Day Care, Function Owners/Component Owners, and Team per Task.

Pattern: Function Owners/Component Owners

Pages: 222-223

If you organize teams by components, functions suffer and vice versa, so be sure every function and every component has an owner.

• Owner per Deliverable is the general expression of this strategy.

Pattern: Someone Always Makes Progress

Pages: 224-225

Distractions constantly interrupt your team's progress, so be sure that someone keeps moving toward the primary goal, no matter what happens.

• This is a general strategy with specializations Day Care, Sacrifice One Person, and Team per Task.

Pattern: Team per Task

Pages: 226-228

A major diversion hits your team, so let a subteam handle the diversion and keep the main team going.

• This strategy treats each task as both an activity and a deliverable. Owner per Deliverable is the general strategy for ownership and accountability.
• Function Owners/Component Owners recommends a team for each artifact in addition to the task of designing it.
• Someone Always Makes Progress is the general distraction-management strategy.
• Sacrifice One Person recommends losing only one person to a distraction.
• Day Care addresses training as a separate deliverable from the software.

Pattern: Sacrifice One Person

Pages: 230-231

A minor diversion hits the team, so assign one person to handle it.

• Team per Task is the general expression of this strategy.
• Owner per Deliverable is the general strategy for ownership.
• Someone Always Makes Progress is the general distraction-management strategy.
• Day Care addresses training as a separate deliverable.
• In Fire Walls, the distraction comes from requests outside the team. A project manager role protects the other team members.
• In Mercenary Analyst, documentation is the distraction. A technical writer protects the other team members.
• In Gatekeeper, technical information is the distraction. One team member is designated to protect the other team members.

Pattern: Day Care

Pages: 232-235

Experts are spending all their time mentoring novices, so put one expert in charge of all the novices. The rest of the team keeps going.

• Someone Always Makes Progress is the general expression of this strategy.