Again, another quote from Slack:

"Paradoxically, the fear of breaking your neck (translation in corporate terms: losing your job) does not make changes impossible. It's a much more insidious kind of fear that interferes with change: The fear of mockery. If you want to make change in your organization utterly impossible, try mocking people as they struggle with the new, unfamiliar ways you have just urged upon them. There is no surer way to stop essential change dead."

Go and Buy the book if you haven't already.

That is a subtitle in chapter 13 of Tom DeMarco´s excellent book Slack, dedicated to the Culture of Fear in our organizations.
These are the characteristics of an organization with the Culture of Fear that are listed in the book:

• It is not safe to say certain things. And truth is no excuse for saying them.
• In fact, being right in your doubts proved that you must be the reason that the fondest wishes of those above you did not come true.
• Goals are set so aggresively that there is virtually no chance of achieving them.
• Power is allowed to trump common sense.
• Anyone can be abused and abased for a failure to knuckle under.
• The people that are fired are, on average, more competent than the people who aren´t.
• The surviving managers are a particulary angry lot. Everyone is terrified of crossing them.

Tom finish that section with the following:
"I hope that as you read these points you're inclined to think thy present a truly extreme picture. I hope this, since it suggests that yours is not a Culture of Fear organization. (If the portrait I'have drawn does not seem extreme to you, you have my sympathies.)"

So, if these points target close to home, do yourself a favor and buy the book. It is a real eye-opener.

That phrase started what may be one of the most life-changing fragments I ever read. It is from Robert Heinlein book "Time Enough for Love".

I have been in a very unique position, seeing crunches that worked and crunches that didn't on the same team (same people, same project).

Those that didn't work, started with the management saying (nearly at the end of the plan) "we are late, crunch time". People felt that things were poorly planned, deadlines where imposed from above, and all those things developers think at those times. End result: we made the dates... with a lot of effort, a lot of "burn down", and alot of defects.

Later on the same project but different release, priorities changed, new requirements came, and the deadline was no longer "achievable", We negotiated a new reduced scope, but even the reduced scope was not possible under normal circumstances (scope could not be reduced further because monetary penalties for the client were at stake). Result? We told that to the team, and curiously enough the TEAM declared "cruch time, let's hit that deadline!". High morale, High energy. One month later, we made it. With a lot less errors than the last time.

Yes, crunches work some times. The interesting thing is identifying why those "some times" it works.

My guess?

When management declares "crunch time", and the team feels that the plan was impossible to begin with and that it was a known fact since the beginning, the crunch will fail (low morale, low productivity, etc,etc,etc). But if the team feels that the plan was achievable, and that what happens is just a roadblock in an otherwise clean road, they will "do their best" to hit the deadline anyway (programmers are stubborn optimistic beasts). Management must just take care that no one burns out due to overwork, the sense of purpose will give the morale and energy needed.

So, at the end, if you manage your project correctly and "crunch time" is due to an unforseen cause the team will help you to hit the deadline. If you mismanaged the project, the team may save you once or twice. After that, they lose trust and will eventually leave.

Good luck, and Happy Blogging!

I stumbled upon a site with some fun quizzes. I could not resist, and did the "How Geek Are You" (hint: if you want to score high in this test, you're a geek).

So, here is the result:

94% Geek
See my other quiz results here

Here I am, sunday afternoon, trying very hard to produce some posts for the blogs I created, to fulfill my self-made promise to blog something meaningful  every other day.

Of course, my mind went blank. Nothing regarding Java, or OOD (for the tech blog), no history from my role-playing past (for the RPG blog), nothing in general for this blog. I was suffering what is called "Writer's Block" or "Blank Page Syndrome"

This is very ironic, given that I'm currently teaching a course on creative thinking and idea generation.

That thought was my salvation.