About the $200M Oracle-Ford Desaster: the management did not give them enough power to go fully agile

Chet Hendrickson:

 It was a very frustrating situation.  The team asked Don and me
 to help with preventing the Oracle consutants from making changes
 directly to the production system.  This was about $150 million into the project.

 We tried to sell them on a more agile approach (as you might imagine), but by
 this time they were pretty far gone.

 It was unfortunante that we were not operating at a level in the organization
 that would have allowed us to get the plug pulled sooner.

 chet

Georg Tuparev has a nice case story, too: speak out if you are put on a death march.

 Few years ago I was called to lead a huge team stuck in one and half
 year design phase. The team was supposed to build a control software
 for a network of telecom satellites. Cannot disclosed names and
 resources, but one could imagine ...

 Three days in the project I had a phone conference with the CxO's of
 both companies involved. Told them that the way it is going no
 satellite will ever fly and that I know a better way. After getting
 green line, the design document was burned with a small celebration at
 a BBQ, and 85% of the initial team members were sent to an indefinitely
 long vacation. With the rest (15%) of the team we had the first
 functioning version 2 months ahead of the schedule and 50% lower then
 expected expenses.

 So the lessons:
 - it is never late to change direction of a project in order to save it.
 - I do not agree with Kent that this is a sad story. If you are a good
 programmer put on a death march project you should speak out! If no one
 listens - walk away. There is just one very precious life in front of
 us - do not waste it! And if these folks wasted 2 years of their lives,
 well, it is their business ... but they should not expect my
 sympathies.

 BTW, Philip is right - the project I was telling about had a 9 months x
 40 people "Big Requirements Up Front"!!! Then the design started...

 Just my 0.02

 Georg Tuparev