Death March (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Death march projects are becoming increasingly common in the software industry. The symptoms are obvious: The project schedule, budget, and staff are about half of what is necessary for completion. The planned feature set is unrealistic. People are working 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week, and stress is taking its toll. The project has a high risk of failure, yet management is either blind to the situation or has no alternative. Why do these irrational projects happen, and what, other than pure idiocy, leads people to get involved in them?

Edward Yourdon has produced a wise and highly readable book on the entire death march phenomenon and the best way to steer through one. He takes a close look at the types of projects that often become death marches and the corporate politics and culture that typically produce them; Yourdon helps you examine your own motivations and those of corporate managers who enable death marches to take shape.

Much of Death March is about the human element of highly stressful projects. The author's plain-spoken observations on the dysfunctional organization--the Machiavellian politics, naive optimism, lust for power, fear, and sheer managerial stupidity that guide so many death marches--make for a refreshing change from other project management books. You'll also find much practical advice to help you survive, everything from negotiating with upper management to breathing life into faltering projects. He'll even help you determine if you should look for another job.

If you've ever worked in a death march situation or been a client of a company addicted to death march management, this book will help you understand what happened. More importantly, it will help you prepare for future encounters with death marches. Death March is highly recommended for anyone involved in software development. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Historically, all software projects have involved a certain degree of risk and pressure -- but many of the projects in today's chaotic business environment involve such intense pressure that they are referred to colloquially as "death-march" projects -- i.e., projects whose schedules are so compressed, and/or whose budgets, or resource (people) assignments are so constrained, that the only "obvious" way to succeed is for the entire team to work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no vacations until the project is finished. While the corporate goal of such projects is to overcome impossible odds and achieve miracles, the personal goal of the project manager and team members often shrinks down to mere survival: keeping one's job, maintaining some semblance of a relationship with one's spouse and children, and avoiding a heart attack or ulcer. This new and thoroughly-updated edition of Ed Yourdon's book takes into account many of the changes that have taken place in the more than six years since the publication of the first edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 2 edition (November 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 013143635X
• ISBN-13: 978-0131436350
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #64,924 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Practical book on how to survive Mission Impossible projects, July 19, 2001

By	Linus W Freeman (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death March: The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving 'Mission Impossible' Projects (Yourdon Computing Series) (Paperback)

I've recently read a lot of books on the new Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) defacto object oriented software development process, Rational Unified Process (RUP), the Object Management Groups new standard visual modeling language, Unified Modeling Language (UML), and good books on software architecture, however, Edward Yourdon's Death March is the most practical book with real world advice on how to handle yourself on projects that are 50% to 100% more aggressive on schedule, budget or staffing resources than "normal" projects. This book's perspectives makes it informative for not just project managers and their development staff but should also provide insight to senior management in both the customer and development organizations. Any person who will have either a vested outcome (stakeholder) in a difficult project or is involved in the decision making (shareholder) of a death march project, should find this book an invaluable resource.

Yourdon classifies death march projects into four types: 1) ugly style projects where there are expected casualties and project failure. 2) Suicide projects where the project has no chance of success but is established and staffed by persons with company loyalty and the belief that the company's continued survival is dependant on the team's last chance effort to save it. 3) Kamikaze style projects that are going to result in the destruction of the project team and staff but can result in the greater good of the company, if successful. 4.) The Mission Impossible project style is the most attractive type of death march because even though the odds are steeply weighed against success, a superb project manager with top notch developers on the team can pull off the impossible and become heroes in the company. The Mission Impossible project type is the most desirable death march project because the project team is eager to take on the challenge and possibly learn and use new exciting technologies in the process. Despite the fact that the chance of success is slim, it's possible to win with the right people

Not only is Yourdon's Death March informative on all possible project participant perspectives on what to do when confronted with a death march project, it is written by one the leading industry pundits and is a great enjoyable read.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent survival guide, January 3, 2004

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If you've been in IT for any length of time, you have undoubtedly experienced what Yourdon calls a "death march" project. These are projects that are underfunded, understaffed, or have deadlines that are unrealistic by a factor of 2x or more. You're expected to sacrifice your life and health for an extended period of time to complete an impossible task. And what's worse, this type of project is becoming all too common in today's business. The book "Death March", while it's unable to stop these projects, can help you survive and manage them.

Yourdon examines the reasons behind why companies run projects in this fashion, as well as some of the surrounding issues that can complicate an already impossible situation. For instance, you may have a tight deadline, but the "Policy Police" expect all the required paperwork to be filled out for each deliverable. Or even more common, you have decisions that need to be made by the customer, but the customer delays making those choices by days or weeks, thereby pushing the schedule off track even further. By understanding these situations, you can devise ways to work around them or to manage expectations so that you don't get saddled with all the blame for missed deadlines in the end.

Both managers and developers will find useful material in this book. It is slanted a bit more towards the management side, but it's useful for both parties to know and understand the external pressures that are affecting the outcome of their project.

Conclusion
If you are working on a death march project (or work for a company where they are all too common), this book can give you some practical ways to deal with the issues that cause them. The projects will not go away, but you will at least have a chance to survive them without losing your sanity.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Classic for Business and IT!, February 6, 2004

By	Jeffery Gainer (près Monaco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Edward Yourdon begins with a definition of a "death march" as any project where the schedule has been arbitrarily compressed by half, the budget has been reduced by 50% or more, the requirements of the project are more than 50% of what can be reasonably expected, or for whatever reason, the risk of project failure is greater than 50%. Given the likelihood of a permanently high-pressure, intensely competitive business environment, death-march projects will remain the norm in the IT industry, and they will continue to appear practically everywhere in business in the future.

The first edition of Death March was for me, as most in the IT industry, gratifying for its dead-on assessment of the realities of IT projects in today's economy. The title is unforgettable, sadly accurate, and particularly resonant in today's increasingly frenetic business environment. The original edition was primarily a diagnosis of the zeitgeist of the IT industry, yet it didn't propose enough solutions for the unfortunates caught in death-march projects. The new, somewhat longer second edition, offers practical solutions for dealing with death marches and the major concerns of potential readers, i.e., what can I do tomorrow? The second edition includes advice on negotiation and estimation, as well as techniques for time management and controlling interruptions.

This is a short and disturbing book-usefully short, because if you really need to read the book, you probably don't have time to read it. But for anyone involved with project or technical management, it is a must-read. And it's not a bad idea for the marketing and sales people who sometime spawn death marches to give it a look, too. With the second edition, Mr. Yourdon has created an enduring work for the IT industry and the general business reader as well, a new classic that I keep on the shelf next to Peopleware and The Mythical Man-Month.