Page 203 - The Art of Designing Embedded Systems

190 THE ART OF DESIGNING EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

developers don’t close their doors or otherwise warn
off interruptions during these hours)?
Yes No Does every developer turn off the phone for at least
several hours a day during their productive time?
Yes No Do developers limit time they leave their email reader
on‘?
Yes No If cubicles are the norm, does each developer do
something (e.g., wear headphones) to limit noise
distractions?
Ifany Nos circled: What action bz-ill you take today to solile the
problem ?
Critical Paths
What action can you take today to make sure everyone has what
they need to be successful next week?
What action can you take next week to make sure everyone has
what they need to be successful next month?

Note that each category concludes with the important admonition: do
something today to clear the roadblock. Don’t defer action; it’s much eas-
ier to correct a project when it first starts to veer off course than after
months of dysfunctional development have left their scars.

Boss Management

Management is the art of combining resources in innovative ways to
get a desired outcome. In our industry this outcome is some blend of fea-
tures, quality, and schedule.
Yet schedule is the usual battleground between managers and the
managed. When management distorts or destroys your careful estimate. or
beats you into agreeing to one that cannot possibly happen. failure is cer-
tain. Period. Yet this practice is the norm.
People ask me constantly how they can better estimate the time a
project will take. When I probe. usually I find that dates are assigned
capriciously by marketing or upper management. These engineers don’t
really want to know how to better estimate their schedules; they’re look-
ing for a silver bullet. a bit of magic that will let them shoehorn their
project into an impossible time frame. Magic and estimation are two
very different things.
Bosses complain that the engineers pad their estimates so much that
there simply must be fat. They feel justified in whacking off a month or