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Hercules and the missing milestones

by Barry Varley, Acutest - published in Project Manager Today February 2005

Eurystheus and Hera dreamt up some pretty tough challenges for Hercules. Challenges where failure was all but a certainty. I mean, taking on a huge and horrible boar, cleaning out the stables of a herd of hundreds of bulls that hadn’t been cleaned for over twenty years, capturing a three headed hound from hell; they must have been confident that he would fail. But he didn’t. He was up to the toughest challenges of the ancient world.

Now, what if this had happened today – what challenges would they have chosen? Well huge and horrible bores and bullshit are still plentiful but three headed hounds and some of the other monsters just aren’t around like they used to be. So they need a few new challenges. And my candidate for a near impossible task is to deliver a major IT-centred change programme on schedule after it has missed early milestones.

Come on, even Hercules would be forgiven a moment of doubt on this one. But to be fair, it is only a near impossible task: after all, he’s not been asked to realise all the benefits in the original business case as well. We’re giving him a sporting chance. There’s a host of reasons why programmes start to slip and it’s important to understand the causes in any particular case. But knowing you have a challenge and what caused it, is not the same as dealing with the challenge.

So how do you get back on track? Lesser men than Hercules might think the answer lies in changing the track: reset the schedule to finish later. And we don’t just slip the end date by the amount we’ve slipped already. No, we need to increase the duration of each phase by the same factor we slipped in the early phase.

Now we know that Eurystheus and Hera wouldn’t have allowed a cheap stunt like this. So why do you think that the businesses dependent upon the success of the programme will? Well, undoubtedly some will. The rate at which Fortune 500 companies vanish from existence is proof of that. But let’s assume that this isn’t a programme for that type of company. No, moving the track is not an option.

So what else could he done?

One hugely popular technique is to concertina down the testing phase at the end of the programme. The programme moves back onto schedule. Until, that is, the final stage is reached and then the consequences of that approach surface. Problems are found: they were always there waiting to be found. They require time to fix and retest. And because they’re found so late they take longer (and cost more) to fix. But there’s less time available because that’s already been squeezed. What chance the delivery date is hit?

So the conclusion is that you shouldn’t squeeze the time spent in the testing phase to get the programme back on track.

Actually, no. Now that may sound strange coming from us. After all, Acutest is an independent testing consultancy and you’d expect us to say you can’t squeeze the testing phase and still deliver. In fact, when I ask testing candidates we interview whether you can do too much testing, 80% say no you can’t. That’s complete nonsense. Of course you can and of course lots of programmes do. One of the most effective ways to speed up delivery when you are short of time is to optimise the approach to testing.

Our top three tips for this optimisation are:

1. Cut the elapsed time estimates for testing: work smarter not longer by focusing the testing onto what matters. Use the latest risk based testing techniques to reduce the elapsed time for testing. On one of our recent assignments, the testing cycle time for a product delivery was reduced by over 50%, largely by intelligent use of risk based testing techniques.
2. Fail fast: search for problems now. Don’t store them up for later. The longer that a defect has been in the programme, the longer it takes to fix. So don’t wait for the finished product or service for testing. And don’t limit your perspective on what constitutes testing: inspections, reviews and walkthroughs are all forms of testing that help find faults close to their point of creation.
3. Use testing information to improve clarity and control. If you know where you really are (rather than where some parties with vested interests may want you to think you are) you can make informed and timely choices as the programme proceeds. This information should permeate into every element of the programme supporting the risks and issues data, the change control system and providing focus for areas that need special attention. Clarity breeds confidence in what will be achieved.

There’s a host of other things you can also do to speed up testing, but if all you do is make these changes you can save significant elapsed time. And then you won’t have to rely upon a Hercules to help you meet the challenging end date. (That’s assuming that there are no man-eating nags blocking your course, when a Hercules or two would really come in handy).