Mon.Sep 07, 2015

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Deadlines are evil. Deadlines are our friends

Folding Burritos

Deadline. Even if you didn’t know what it meant, the word surely sounds ominous. And then, when you look up the origin of the term , it gets even nastier. The word comes from US Civil War prison camps, where guards would shoot any prisoner that crossed a line about 19 feet from the wall. That is the kind of inspiration for one of the most common concepts that we have to deal with on our products and projects.

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The Alternative to Roadmaps

svpg

I have always loved the General George Patton quote: “Don’t tell people what to do; tell them what you need accomplished, and you’ll be amazed at the results.” Unfortunately, typical roadmaps do just what the General warned against – they tell the team what to do. Usually that’s in the form of a prioritized list of features or projects that someone believes will actually solve some problem (even if that problem is often not explicitly stated or understood).

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