Last Friday's Times of India (ToI) had a page on what should be done to save the games (CWG) from disaster. Basically it was roping in more people. Apparently they have not heard of the software project dictum - Throwing more people at a delayed project will not get it back on schedule.
Reminded me of how at one time we used make software deliveries:
Individuals busy with allotted tasks - no tracking, no reporting of daily/weekly progress.
No incremental delivery of working code.
No getting the bad news early - No daily build and smoke. (Did CWG have a means of getting the bad news? Were the bearers of bad news beheaded? Was the organizing committee hearing only what it want to hear?)
No unit tests. Big bang testing towards the end.
Then slapdash defect fixes with undetected side-effects ("software malba"). No estimation of slippage.
No effective reviews of project artefacts. (What were CWG reviews like?) .
Cowboy coding. (Plenty of media reports about CWG's cowboy administration:-)
Heroic all-nighters in the last few days (ToI's suggestions).
Then ship "something" at 0400hrs, the day after the committed date.
Declare success! (Kalmadi & co. will do the same).
Something better than nothing? Maybe; but, as a friend of mine said long ago, nothing is better than non-sense.
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