Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

Re:Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder by spfzero on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @04:23PM (#33793493)

I imagine a death march to be something worse than that. In this case everyone shared the goal, it wasn't a made-up deadline forced on underlings by a clueless management. This management knew they could do it, and the team knew they could do it and had done it before. That's what they were there for; the thing they hoped to be able to do.

When I think of a death march, I think of an engineering task (usually a software program) with a known-impossible deadline, where the team pushes back on the deadline and is ignored. Necessary tools not provided, work hours monitored, rather than progress, etc.

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Re:Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder by gorjusborg on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @09:15AM (#33801023)

Yeah, I agree, TSOANM isn't really about a death march.

I am abusing the term. I worked on some death marches with guys who saw themselves as Tom West though, which is probably why I chose that phrase.

A death march, to me, is a project that you know can't succeed but you are forced to go forward anyway.

I once had a boss hold the team at work until a piece of work was done (and it was 2am before it was clear it wasn't going to happen). That was just one day, but that project was a death march.

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