For some time now, I have thought that high-level project roadmaps (Gantt charts in particular) are one of the most worthless documents that a software project team can produce. I shouldn’t be so hard on them, but there are an uncountable number of reasons why I despise these charts.

Quantifies Unknowns

As the old saying goes:

You don’t know what you don’t know.

Most roadmap documents are created with very little research or prototyping done before hand. As a result roadmaps are left with very large holes in them. To add injury to insult, some roadmaps are even then “buffered” to account for these unknowns.

Regardless, these timelines are then declared “complete” as every action (that they knew about) was covered, and some arbitrary number is placed on the things that they didn’t know (which is always the lion’s share of the project).

Promotes Optimistic Estimations

The main reasoning behind estimation methods such as point estimation is that we have a hard time distinguishing the difference of long running tasks. Sure we can accurately estimate the difference between a 1 hour task and a 2 hour task, but can we really estimate the difference between a 23 hour and a 24 hour task? No, not in the least.

Roadmaps promote these optimistic estimations at an epic scale, attempting to reason the difference between a 3 month task and a 4 month task. Most commonly this is also done without ever breaking each of these course task blocks up into actionable tasks that can be completed in less than a day, thus getting back to quantifying the unknowns.

If the development team is very unlucky, the development team will be forced to estimate each of these tasks in an impromptu meeting lead by the manager creating this document. This is very unfortunate because it now allows the developers to become the estimation scapegoat.

Instantly Degrades

Progress is not linear, unfortunately, all roadmaps are designed to show that software is built in a linear factory-like manner. Some might say that it is the medium of which the message is delivered; however, I believe it doesn’t matter if the document is written on toilet paper – the core philosophy is flawed.

The instant the Step 1 – Step 2 – Step 3 plan deviates into Step 3 – Step 1.2 – Step XYZ, the document instantly degrades and needs updating. This is simply not how software is built, or how its’ progress should be kept.

Promotes Urgency

Although I do agree with the fact that we all need some level of healthy stress; however, because of inaccurate timelines and optimistic estimations we create slipping deadlines and broken promises.

As a result, we create poisonous environments of urgency. I believe it was Steve McConnell in Software Estimation who said that a developer under strict deadlines will actually produce less due to high levels of stress, which in turn, will put more bugs into the system – quicksand effect if you will.

So what can we do to combat Product Roadmaps? I am just getting going…be sure to look for Part 2 on Friday….

Regardless of language and skill set, all developers have to constantly revisit their code and refactor. Although you can look at it optimistically and view it as an opportunity for continuous improvement, many of us also take the pessimistic view that it is a chore.

Unfortunately, either way you look at it refactoring is a necessity for long term cleanliness. It is true that you can procrastinate some amount of this “housekeeping” activity, but in the end you will have to give in and do it. This reminds me of a quote:

Before enlightenment, run water, wash dishes. After enlightenment run water, wash dishes.

Even after we reach the highest level of development consciousness (if there even is such a thing), we will still find ourselves running water and doing dishes.

Never stop learning. Never stop questing. There is no end, just new clean beginnings.

Feeling kind of lazy lately due to a lack of sleep the last few days, so I am going to coast today with a batch of links. I dug down really deep into my grab bag, so there are some oldies but goodies here. I am currently working on a post for Friday called – “Mr. Yuk Says Project Roadmaps Are Poisonous” so be sure to look for that hopefully this week.

• Bonuses In An Agile Organization? – Very good discussion about how to reward Agile teams. A little pessimistic about this idea as it rewards attempting to put 10 lbs of potatoes into a 5 lb sack…
• There Is Too Much Money To Be Made In Software Development – I really liked this post as it outlines a real problem with our IT departments investing in sunken costs.
• Reacting To Change – A good article on how to cope with change. However, I would just like remind developers not to reject change to quickly.
• SecretGeek’s Guide To Selecting A Cartoon To Suit Your Chosen IT Career – A list of good geek cartoons
• If It Looks Like a Cow, Swims Like a Dolphin and Quacks Like a Duck, It Must Be Enterprise Software – Love the title of this post and the message.