• 
  Please support me in the 2010 Ride to Conquer Cancer - last year we were able to raise $6.9 million for the Alberta Cancer Foundation - hopefully we can raise even more in 2010!

  ---

• Search for:

• Pages

  • About
    • Colophon
    • Contact
    • Curriculum Vitae
    • Presentations
  • Archives
    • Recent Comments
    • Shared Items
  • Asides
  • Photography
  • WordPress
    • Akismet Credit Inserter
    • Post Revision Display

• Categories

  • aside
  • digital photography sessions
  • fun
  • general
  • photography
  • work

• Blog under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
  

I’m sure this is going to be linked all over the place, but it’s a very interesting read. It’s a reposting by David Gristwood, of an original article by Jim McCarthy (a manager on the MS Visual C++ team).

Particularly interesting and useful, it delves into the topic of “slippage”, but treats it as a necessary and good part of the process. Slippage becomes a transition from the unknown to the less unknown – as you know more, the timeline and estimates become more refined and realistic, often leading to slippage.

Perhaps the most important point is the first one: Don’t know what you don’t know. If you don’t know something, state that, and come up with a plan to fill the gap. Incorrectly assuming knowledge, or worse – faking it – will lead to disaster.

UPDATE: Just came across a link to The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming – more good stuff. Even comes with a handy downloadable (if butt ugly) stone tablet for printing.

I think I’ve been risking breaking Commandment #9: Don’t be “the guy in the room” – going to have to work harder to prevent that.

Comments