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The project I said would take 4 weeks, that management demanded be done in 2 weeks (without working late) is finished in 2 weeks. With a lot of bugs and no unit tests. 
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You do realize that the next project you will say will take 2 weeks, management will demand it be done in 0 weeks, and you will go insane.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I did realize this, too late. I finished in 2 weeks and the first thing they said was "we should have said 1 week."
But now that it is in Test they're finding out that vague requirements, a lack of direction from the Business and a compressed time frame have led to a lot of gaps, not just in the code but in what they actually wanted the application to do. If this thing goes live in less than another 2 weeks I'd be surprised. And that would bring me right back to my original 4 weeks.
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We call that iterative development, take their vague specs and lack lustre involvement and turn out a prototype. That gives them something to get excited about and gets them involved. The actual project will finish in about 8 months if ever!
The most you can hope for is that the changing requirements don't break your data structure requiring a major refactor.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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For what its worth, one of my personal observations (that I have never seen anywhere) is that long projects often fail because of schedule stretching due to feature creep. With a short project, there is close to zero feature creep, and in my observation, success rates (measured by customer satisfaction) are higher.
If you did it in 2 weeks, it is almost agile regardless of what processes you used. 
--
Harvey
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We had some time and motion people in recently and we were discussing our development methodologies etc. We were accused of using agile, it turns out we do the agile style without the formal agile crap that goes with it! Haven't done a sprint in 30 years, as for daily meetings, not a chance.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: it turns out we do the agile style without the formal agile crap
Same here. We're a casual agile (note the lower case 'a' there) shop. We did have the grand poobah once try to start code reviews, in which he was going to have the hardware engineers review our code, and we were going to review the hardware engineers' designs.
We left his body in the stocks until the local flock of turkey vultures had picked his skeleton clean.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I'd love to do code reviews, code to a testing framework, proper specs and have a QA team, in my dreams!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Ah, but did you notice who was going to review what: this moron wanted hardware guys to review software, and vice versa. He must have been hit with a larger than usual stupid stick that day.
Software Zen: delete this;
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The next time management requests magical time compression, respond with "Boeing 787".
/ravi
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so next time you think 4 weeks, tell them 8 
Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder
Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow.
You can't scare me, I have children.
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Not a bad plan
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I do this by default... not doubling it but still adding some padding. It's better to surprise them with an early delivery than to continually disappoint them with later deliveries when things go wrong.
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Sounds as if that two weeks would have been better spent looking for a new job.
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I'm the only developer here so my job's safe which is nice. And it is only 2 miles from home. I can deal with their struggle to learn how developing works. And at least they didn't request 90 hour weeks from me like previous places have tried to do.
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Mars, Pennsylvania I might be able to manage in two weeks. And given how vague my requirements were that might be what they mean for all I know 
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Sure you can do that, tell them you can do that in 2 weeks, without this, This, this and oh yeah THIS feature. 
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AnalogNerd wrote: done in 2 weeks
Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from The Money Pit:
Fielding: When I do get the permits, how long will the job take?
Contractor: Two weeks.
Fielding: Two weeks? Two weeks?
Contractor: You sound like a parakeet. "Two weeks? Two weeks?"
What me worry?
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Boss: "Carlo, How much time will it take?"
Carlo: "Four weeks"
Boss. "Too much. You have to complete it in two weeks"
Carlo: "OK, boss I will finish it in four weeks"
Veni, vidi, vici.
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There are three main aspects to any project:
-Quality
-Features
-Delivery Date
One of these will vary. You decide.
Steve Wellens
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A long time ago I saw a quote that said something like "Fast. Cheap. Good. Pick two."
Yours makes more sense for my situation since I'm salaried and "cheap" isn't a factor. I'll be using this from now on. Thanks!
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AnalogNerd wrote: With a lot of bugs and no unit tests.
That is how we roll out projects too. They finish on unrealistic schedules and no one seems to care. They just assign the inevitable problems that plague the project like it is just another day at the office.
It seems the new modus operandi in these times of low budgets and under staffed projects.
I believe you can have it fast, you can have it right, you can have it cheap; choose two. 
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I saw this Dilbert comic this weekend [^]
My new response will be "I can fail at any speed you like." 
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AnalogNerd wrote: My new response will be "I can fail at any speed you like."
Good quote, I'll use it too. 
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