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What's Common Between Opera Houses And Software Projects, or 10 Reasons Software Developers Go Overtime

Elena on August 23, 2017

Many software projects go overtime. Software developers get blamed for that, laughed at, scorned at. But guess what: it's not only software develo...
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James

I enjoyed this article a lot. Firstly, I liked the idea of comparing software protects to building opera houses, instead of just houses. This makes so much sense, and is definitely something I'm going to incorporate into my behavior going forward.

I would add to the optimism category, that project managers sometimes forget that new features take more money AND time. I was leading a small project and promised our customer we could deliver more features they wanted, if they gave us more money. I completely forgot to adjust our deadline, and realized my error much later (thankfully, overtime was approved and we still delivered on time). The lesson: always remember that new stuff costs both money and additional time; it seems obvious, I know.

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Elena

Thank you, James!
At least you didn't forget the money :))

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Elena

Forgot to mention - I feel like your situation is happening quite often, so I have the whole section dedicated to it: "Reason 3: Changing Requirements".

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James

Yeah, requirements change a LOT. Luckily, the project I'm referring to had very few requirements change when I was running it. Others in my office haven't been so lucky and deal with changing requirements on a constant basis.

As you said in your other comment: at least I remembered the money though.

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TMcSquared

Thanks for this awesome and detailed article, it's going to help me a lot as I lead developing a new open-source project.

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Elena

Happy you liked it. How nice, which project?

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TMcSquared

The project I'm working on is Qub3d, the goal is to create a valid open-source alternative to MineCraft.

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Jason C. McDonald

I love the multiply by Pi. Ye-ah, sounds about right.

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TMcSquared

Pi is the answer to life, the universe, and everything....though some may argue that it's actually 42.

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Sticky Fingers

Great article!

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Elena

Thank you!