The deadline: Chapter 8 & 9

Well, Here we go again.

Along the reading of this novel, It came this idea to me,
that Mr. T is some kind of Mr. Scrooge man, who has aparitions
from different ghosts of software projects managment.
During these chapters I found some interesting ideas I think I should talk at least a little bit.

Communication is essential

At the chapter 9, there is this scene, where the general Marklov is presented to Mr. T.
Then he said something like: Oh, this workers are not gonna make useless work anymore, we are getting offshore work.
This line got confused to the NNL, covered as Mr. Lider. Don’t get me wrong, I think the initiative of the General was great and pretty clever, and maybe he had the power to make that call.

But he didn’t communicate his decision to his direct boss.

Maybe it looks like nothing, maybe it was a little detail it was not the point of the charapter. But it’s important.

Communication is necesary, in any direction, upwards or downwards. In my opinion, the more communication «downwards» the more the employees feel they belong to the company. Of course, there should be some calls that aren’t supposed to be published, but this idea should keep in mind a good manager.

On the other hand, a good «upward» communication, could help us to point flaws or red flags during the process of a project.

This idea lead us to the next point.

Risk management

Manage projects by managing their risks.

Basically, if there is not risk in a project, Management would be the simplest thing to do ever.

Basically, because there are errors which are caused by little flaws and mistakes, the manager needs to keep track of each stage of the process. Like the old chinese proverb:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
for want of a shoe the horse was lost;
and for want of a horse the rider was lost;
being overtaken and slain by the enemy,
all for want of care about a horse-shoe nail.

Old chinese proverb.

Manager should be aware of each risk of cause of them. Also, he should be able of reduce those risk in early stages of the project. This doesn’t mean be in constant fear of each troubble, but manager should be autocritical enough to recognize what is a real risk and what is not.

Cut your losses.

I’m wasting my time
I got nothin’ to do
I’m hangin’ around
I’m waitin’ for you

Lemon Tree, Oasis

According the novel, one of the most important actions to take when you are managing is cutting loses.

This means don’t touch your heart and stop everything that could be making you wasting time or resources. Actually, we could translate this sentence into: Be autocritical and evaluate how are using your time.

We can notice if there is a waste if you can measure it. Using tools for do it, could help us to keep improving our time management.

In my personal case, the moment I decided not lie myself, measure my time and set goals and meetings during my week, I made myself more productive, more satisfied with my life and rest better, because I set time to do that.

Time is a non renovable resource, please make something useful with it.