Extreme Programming - The Liar's Club

Author

The Liar's Club

Isaac Gouy

2004-06-03, 7:08 pm

"Concealment is often standard practice. At a major
defense contractor, w

ly meetings of project team
leaders were known as ‘‘the liars' club'' because everyone
withheld knowledge that their subsystem was
behind schedule. Members of the liar's club hoped
someone else would be forced to admit problems first,
forcing the schedule to slip and letting them escape
responsibility for their own tardiness. Everyone in the
liar's club knew that everyone was concealing rework
requirements and everyone knew that those best able to
hide their problems could escape responsibility for the
project failing to meet its targets."

http://ceprofs.tamu.edu/dford/DNF%20Profesional/TheLiar'sClubCERA.pdf

Laurent Bossavit

2004-06-03, 7:08 pm

Isaac (quoting):

> "Members of the liar's club hoped someone else would be forced
> to admit problems first, forcing the schedule to slip and letting
> them escape responsibility for their own tardiness."

Also known as Schedule Chicken. For other schedule games see:
http://www.ayeconference.com/wiki/s...d=ScheduleGames

The article's abstract states: "We argue that much of the complexity of
concurrent development — and the implementation failures that plague
many organizations — arises from interactions between the technical and
behavioral dimensions."

Precisely right, and you could substitute "software development" for
"concurrent development" without altering the point.

Thanks for the ref (this David Ford seems to have a lot of good stuff at
the same address, too).

Laurent
http://bossavit.com/thoughts/

Isaac Gouy

2004-06-03, 7:08 pm

Laurent Bossavit <laurent@dontspambossavit.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1b1fbd984b027dab98979a@news.noos.fr>...

-snip-
> Thanks for the ref (this David Ford seems to have a lot of good stuff at
> the same address, too)

Much of it based on modelling.

"Lesson 1
There's no substitute for direct observation."

Spear, Steven J. (May 2004). "Learning to Lead at Toyota."
Harvard Business Review, 78-86.

Robert C. Martin

2004-06-03, 7:08 pm

On 26 May 2004 23:19:47 -0700, igouy@yahoo.com (Isaac Gouy) wrote:

>"Concealment is often standard practice. At a major
>defense contractor, w

ly meetings of project team
>leaders were known as ‘‘the liars' club'' because everyone
>withheld knowledge that their subsystem was
>behind schedule. Members of the liar's club hoped
>someone else would be forced to admit problems first,
>forcing the schedule to slip and letting them escape
>responsibility for their own tardiness. Everyone in the
>liar's club knew that everyone was concealing rework
>requirements and everyone knew that those best able to
>hide their problems could escape responsibility for the
>project failing to meet its targets."

Yes, that's a fairly common situation. I remember one particular
client where they had reviews every six w

s. They called it
"Schedule Chicken". Everybody knew that everybody else was late, but
nobody know just how late everybody else was. So everybody kept quiet
about their tardiness in hopes that someone else would flinch and
admit to being late. Usually this was the person whose milestone was
due in the next couple of w

s. Once this person flinched, everybody
else could relax for another six w

s.

Foolishness.

-----
Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)
Object Mentor Inc.
unclebob @ objectmentor . com
800-338-6716

"The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom,
but to set a limit to infinite error."
-- Bertolt Brecht, Life of Galileo

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