Re:Have these people ever delivered a project? (Score 1)

Re: (Todd Knarr's comment) : "Simply put, if you're doing something that hasn't been done before you need to do a lot of exploration to figure out what the users really want and what the best way of doing it is" Right on the money ... if what you are being asked to build is "Version 2", then you have a lot to work with, but, if you are making it up as you go along, then it's better to admit (at least internally) that you are doing so, and accept the constraints. This whole topic could have been titled "Why your users hate Development!". :-) Before debating waterfall vs. agile, I would ask some basic project questions, on the management side: * Is there a single business case / requirements owner who can quickly sign off on what you are building, or is this large committee-ware? * Have initial requirements been at least sketched out? * Is this something that has been done before (by members of this team), or is this a new application/problem domain? * Is someone on the team taking the role of project manager, or is that unclear to the team? * Is someone on the team taking the role of lead architect, to help assure design consistency and to look for holes? * Has the problem been divided into manageable pieces? * Has each developer on the project been assigned specific authority, responsibility and deliverables (even if prototyping)? * Does the development team have "critical mass", that is, do enough people on the team possess the skills and problem domain knowledge to move forward quickly? * Is the team the right size? Larger groups, by definition, have more communication problems and are less agile than smaller teams. If the answers to these questions are negative, the selected methodology is unlikely to overcome such basic problems.