Ask Slashdot: How Do You Deal With Priorities Inflation In IT Projects?

NetDanzr writes "I work for an IT company that has a steady stream of projects, new features to our existing products and technical support issues. As it is customary, though, our development resources are not sufficient to cover the amount of projects. As a result, our delivery dates are slipping, and as a result the average priority of projects is rising. Where the goal was to have only 10% of projects rated high, within a year nearly 50% of projects are rated as such. Our solution is to completely wipe out the project list once per year and start a new, properly prioritized list. How does your company deal with this inflation of priorities?"

Comments

We dont deal with it

[Anonymous Coward]

we just all stress out and have 10000 tonnes of pressure 24/7/365

Re:We dont deal with it

[Anonymous Coward]

We typically fire the entire IT staff every couple of years and try to hire replacements at 70% salary under threat of outsourcing.

Re:We dont deal with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'm not familiar with the terminology in TFA, but I suspect it's the same situation where we're up against the wall with multiple systems down and a Sales laptop infected with a Croatian automailer and the VP comes and says:
"Stop. Just stop. I know you think you know where your priorities lie, but you're having difficulty seeing the big picture and you have a bad attitude from your inability to prioritize. So all of you come over here - I can't get this funny cat video to play on my iPad and it's crucial for this Sales presentation."

Re:We dont deal with it

[dem0n1]

Declare all but government mandated holidays to be crunch time. Encourage all salaried employees to work those holidays and any other time they are not unconscious in microsleep shutdown with false intimation of bonus perqs tied to an impossible to achieve success bar. Include necessarily vague (to keep legal) statements at team and all-hands meetings acknowledging that those that don't live up to the highest work ethic standards of their peers will be not be moved onto teams that are "pushing the envelope of industry technology to create products for the coming decade!" and will instead support EOL products (where head count will be reduced by 95% in six months, or less). Make sure that the health plan has drug and alcohol treatment options so engineers will be encouraged to find new designer amphetamines to help meet deadlines, then tie enrollment in those treatment programs to HR so no one would actually ask for rehab time off. Oh and most importantly buy pizza at least once a week, so the employees feel that management cares about them.

Create more priorities

[Chemisor]

Obviously, you need more priorities. Nobody wants to mark his pet project as "low" priority, so you need to be creative. Ask marketing for help, and you'll end up with your new priorities: "High", "Very High", "Red", "Extreme", "Platinum", "Overclocked", "Done Yesterday", "Drop Everything", and "The Boss Is Watching".

Use the Scotty principal.

[Kenja]

If you think something will take an hour, say it will take three. Then when it takes you two you're a genius for getting it done early. Oh... and shout "I've given 'er all she's got cap'in" every now and then.

If you still have an American IT job in 2012....

[Anonymous Coward]

...then the policy is "The beatings will continue until productivity improves!"

Re:Don't let users score their own tasks

[dedmorris]

That won't work - most of the feature requests would be about GreatBunzinni.

Re:By not having the situation in the first place

[arth1]

The true problem with agitating against Agile is that you may succeed, in which case it will be replaced with a new, shinier, and even more frustrating silver bullet. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.
Play the game, use what's useful, assist others, produce your best, close your eyes and think of England.