Anatomy of a Runaway Project

JCWDenton recommends a piece by Bruce Webster revealing some insights into a failed multi-million-dollar IT project. "The following document is the actual text — carefully redacted — of a memo I wrote some time back after performing an IT project review; names and identifying concepts have been changed to preserve confidentiality (and protect the guilty). The project in question was a major IT re-engineering effort for a mission-critical system; at the time I did this review, the project had been going on for several years and had cost millions of dollars; it would eventually be canceled and the work products abandoned. The memo itself provides an interesting glimpse into just how a major IT project can go so far off the tracks that nothing useful is ever delivered."

Comments

This is about Vista, isn't it? (nt)

[starX]

From TFA:


The FUBAR project keeps being touted as a world-class development team, but it is not producing world-class, or even minimally-professional, results. This already shows up in the project delays and quality issues of the releases to date. What the team is producing will not only be very difficult to support and modify, it will in all likelihood be unusable, resulting in a complete failure of the FUBAR project.


Sounds like Vista to me...

I get the impression

[g0bshiTe]

That "FUBAR" project is Duke Nuke Em Forever.

Re:I want names.

[JaredOfEuropa]

But what if it was Yahoo! or Microsoft?

From what I've read, it could have been any company I've worked for.

Re:Irony

[jd]

The thing is, 5,000 engineers horsing around isn't the same thing as a 5,000 horsepower engine.

Re:Irony

[192939495969798999]

Like I always say: Winsom, lose some.

Re:Irony

[smittyoneeach]

That's the first time in 1,640 posts you've said "Winsom, lose some", you big fibber.