11.2 Organization sets the stage for communication

Organizing your development team should seem simple enough, yet it is often an ongoing activity for many companies, manifesting itself primarily at times of crisis. At one company, reorganizations were regular and predictable. The pattern went as follows:

• Unrealistic schedules for development were not met.

• The product did not work as expected at release milestones.

• We could not ship the product in order to recognize revenue, triggering crisis.

• The project manager was replaced with another person that was perceived as capable (or someone from the outside was hired).

• The organizational structure was changed (promote some individuals, remove others from management).

• Repeat this sequence of events every 3 months.

Contrary to what has been written about the beneficial effect of reorgs taking place on a regular basis (every 6 months) [2], they, in fact, cause tremendous confusion and disrupt the development process. A reorg is generally a bad idea midway through a complex project.

Another interesting phenomenon that sometimes occurs during project crisis is the introduction of a war room a room devoted to project business.

War room walls are littered with schedules and project paraphernalia. The expectation that this is the cure to the chronic problem of disorganization which causes schedule slippage, poor product quality, and low morale, is very poorly founded. The war room concept seems common, as I have had the experience of seeing this enacted at two companies that were in serious trouble with respect to product development. In both instances,...