Show Navigation
Conversation
Notices
-
A friend of mine a long time ago said that working overtime for bad pay just because it's a startup is bullshit and he'd never do it and I'm occasionally thinking about it ever since.
If your thing can't succeed with 10 MUSD funding and everyone working healthy hours, can it really succeed any better with 3 MUSD funding, half the people and everyone working themselves to death?
If you do succeed initially, how do you switch from death march mode to sustainable mode when everyone currently in the company, who are setting the culture for anyone joining, only ever knew death march mode together?
- LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} likes this.
-
@clacke I'm going to remember the name "death march mode". It fits what $EMPLOYER tends to do at the beginning of an assignment.
-
@LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} The beginning? Not the end?
-
@clacke No, at the end, trying to cut costs enough to hit budget targets is their priority. In the beginning, they're not worried about the budget.
-
@LinuxWalt (@lnxw48a1) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} I stole the term from the agile community, but I didn't know the origin of the term. It's literally the title of a book on the topic that looks like an interesting read, about the causes and mechanisms of such projects:
web.archive.org/web/2020111201β¦
The concept has a huge overlap with the mythical man hour concept. Adding more people to a late project makes it later, but squeezing more hours out of existing staff doesn't do you any favors either, except perhaps in the very short term.
-
If they are not worried about the budget, why are they driving the staff to unsustainable working hours?
-
The anatomy of one particular death march project: web.archive.org/web/2020102017β¦
-
They're also worried about the projected schedule.
-
My headcanon for the meaning of the term was that the project was destined to fail, but people were desperately trying to postpone the failure by adding more people, squeezing more hours out of people, etc, inevitably instead hastening the failure/death of the project.
Instead, I think what it does describe is the allegory of a march where you progressively remove the people that burn out. In the real-life project you probably replace them instead, maintaining the illusion of a sustainable project, but looking at any cohort of project members you're clearly failing at it.
-
Before the project even starts?
-
Hit schedule: bonuses for top managers.
Hit budget: bonuses for top managers.