I have to second Michael's statement that hardware projects have some
fundamental differences from software projects that make software
development methodologies less applicable to them. I came to rockets from
the software world planning to use a software-development-like work cycle,
and I was surprised about how many things made that just not work very well.
The classic paper "No Silver Bullet" identified a bunch of unique
challenges about software development like the arbitrariness of complexity
that gave such fits to project managers coming from the hardware world.
It's interesting that there's a similar set of unique challenges to
hardware that cause problems for managers coming from the software world.
Bob
On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 9:52 PM, Michael Clive <clive@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I found agile to be a poor fit for hardware projects. This is because
hardware has issues like
1. It takes time to make something
2. When something is damaged, you can't just recompile it
3. There are externalities on physical objects that software does not
have.
I know it is not hip or cool, but I like my Gantt charts. They clearly
communicate durations and dependencies.
I will never use the agile method in my company.
Analytical management says, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
I would disagree. There is an endless list of unmeasurable qualities in any
organization that can be managed against if you are aware of them.
Metrics are helpful, but they are no panacea.
