A great book by Edward Yourdon, Death March: The Complete Software Developer’s Guide to Surviving ‘Mission Impossible’ Projects. Being part of a crunch turned to death march projects, this book speaks volumes on the subject and is a worthwhile read (hopefully before you start on a project). For a death march project to occur, one […]
Category: crunch
Well, the day still starts at 7:00 AM, but the timeline is a bit different in a crunch. See my original post for comparison: http://gameprogrammertechnicalartist.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-in-life-of-game-programmer-team.html
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One day at a time
How do projects succeed or fail? One day at a time. What is your focus during the day, do you always work on the most important aspects first, or do you get swept up in the tiny details each time. Too often it is these tiny details that become death by a thousand cuts. Sure […]
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Why do people crunch?
I was asked by a friend an colleague: “why do people crunch”? This is not an easy one to answer. I suppose for everyone it is a little different, and is often based on the person themself, their attitude, personality and history. For me, I usually enjoy the work, and like the challenge and the […]
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Code Reviews in Crunch
Code reviews are important (yes, really). If you have a code review tool like Rietveld, Crucible or CodeStriker it is nice to have a central place to do code reviews, especially for a large team. But how often to do the code reviews and is there time?
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Estimating "How Long will it Really Take"
First off, I want to say I love Star Trek, especially The Next Generation, and still consider it one of my all time favorite shows. Here is a great scene from Captain Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) and Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton). Season 6, Espisode 4 “Relics”
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Deadlines in a crunch
Deadlines are like dominos. If you miss one, it can cascade to all the other following deadlines making it very difficult to catch up. You need to stop this from happening, immediately. If you do not catch up, it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to get on track, and you can end up […]
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Dunning-Kruger effect
The worst part about a crunch is the toll it takes on the people. Everyone starts to get tired and cranky (shame programmers don’t have cheerleaders). Anyway, for whatever reason my mind wandered over to the Dunning-Kruger effect taken from wikipedia (I know I know, I will try and find a better site for sourcing): […]
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Crunch together
A team in crunch has a good chance of jelling, it is often during this time that a team can really learn more about each other and bond. Working long hours after many of the other employees have gone home does not feel quite so bad when you are not alone. It gives a better […]
Crunch, overtime, force-overtime, deathmarch. Call it what you want, no one likes it, no one wants it, and yet it seems to happen in far too many places, and far too often (will have to read that Deathmarch book soon I think).