Home > Articles > Programming > Windows Programming

Managing a Doomed Software Project: Practical Suggestions for Breaking the Bad News

When that high-profile project just ain't gonna happen, how can you ensure that your head isn't on the chopping block? Matt Heusser provides some practical suggestions for passing on the bad news without just passing the blame.
Like this article? We recommend

Like this article? We recommend

Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

The company, department, or customer bets the farm that project X will be done by late October in order to make the Christmas sales period. Various managers assure them that this can be done. Around June, the big boss calls you into his office and explains to your team the importance of the project, its crucial nature to the business, the value of your contribution, and the importance of the deadline.

Time passes...

Sometime around July 15, you realize that there’s no way you can meet the deadline. It doesn’t matter how much overtime you work, it doesn’t matter how lucky you get—it just won’t happen.

Welcome to the doom train. All aboard.

If you’ve been a technical contributor for long, this scenario is probably rather familiar. In fact, you may be living it right now. If that’s the case, take heart—we’ve all been there before. This article is written just for you.

It’s important to note that being doomed has nothing to do with performance; it’s all about expectations. Whether having project X done by October 15 is reasonable does not really matter if project X is expected on that date. In my own career, literally every single time I have been doomed has been due to this expectation gap; nothing else comes close.

Before I offer advice, we need to make sure that you really are doomed. The expanse of human potential is incredible; don’t count yourself out just because things look grim today. If you just had a bad day, you are just stuck on a particularly nasty problem, or the project is challenging but possible, throwing in the towel early and following the advice in this article can make your life much worse.

There are lots of ways to figure out whether you’re doomed. One simple approach is a burn-down chart. Break the project into tasks and assign a point value to each task, such as how many hours the task should take. Figure out how many points your team is accomplishing per week, and you can project out to when the project will finish. If projected completion is past the due date, you’re doomed. If the project is visibly off-track, you can try to brainstorm a half-dozen actions within your power to bring it back on track. Have you given up bull sessions and web-surfing, put in reasonable overtime, tried to offload non-project work, and every other reasonable step?

Yup, still doomed.

Like any recovery program, we’ve completed the first step—recognizing the problem. Recognizing your doomed-ness is liberating, because you can stop wishing and hoping and "trying harder," and instead take actual steps to improve your life. Despite the dark cloud hanging over you and coloring your vision of the world, it’s possible to improve the situation, given just a few techniques and a plan. Let’s talk about some specific techniques first.

"I Can’t Do This": The Power of Congruence

The typical response to doomed-ness is fight-or-flight: getting scared and working lots of overtime, or getting defensive and finger-pointing. Neither of those options deals with the real problem—the combination of expectation and ability.

If you were picked to work on the big critical piece of the product, odds are that it’s because you are good at what you do and well suited to do it. Perhaps no one else knows the technology or codebase as well as you, or you may have certain natural talents.

If you are coming from such a position of respect, you can arrange a private meeting with the boss and tell him very respectfully, "I can’t finish project X by October 15. I want to. I’m working hard at it and I want us to succeed. Perhaps you can find someone else to do it, but I can’t."

Of course, there is no one else. A savvy boss will realize this fact very quickly. If you can’t do it, nobody can. At this moment, you are no longer doomed—you have transitioned the doomed-ness to the boss. This will completely upset his sense of control, and trigger his fight-or-flight response. To smooth things over, you’ll want the next step, covered in the following section.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020