

Ask HN: How do you deal with a "death march"? - deathmarcher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_march_(project_management)<p>I have a friend who very clearly described to me these exact conditions, and he was completely stressed out as a result.<p>Have you encountered this type of situation before?  How did you deal with it?
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anigbrowl
Identify co-workers who also feel overwhelmed and lack confidence in the
current 'mission impossible.' Begin or initiate the next meeting by gently but
firmly pointing out that the current trajectory is unsustainable and self-
destructive. Don't assign blame, but collectively demand a realignment,
pointing out where 'just one more push' won't solve the problem.

Obviously there's not way to tell from this post, but a persistent problem
I've seen in software organizations is that the sales staff are not
accountable to clients or co-workers for inflated or over-optimistic promises
of features or release dates. When targets are not met, client meetings often
end up with an implicit passing of blame to the (absent) developers. This is a
poisonous cycle that needs to be broken. One firm I knew off addressed this by
bringing disappointed clients to the firm's HQ to explain to developers which
features/use cases had priority. Clients felt mollified and valued, developers
got valuable feedback without feeling forced into a commitment or marketing
role, and sales staff took greater ownership of the relationship instead of
seeing their sales as one-off zero-sum transactions. Obviously, this was
politically challenging and a difficult step to take for most parties within
the firm, but it increased productivity and good will considerably. It was a
small firm and for many cases this approach is not easily mappable, but with
the right leadership it can pay rich dividends.

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mkarazin
Righting a project requires figuring out what the root of the problem is. A
stakeholder demanding an unfeasible requirement may seem like the problem, but
it could be deeper such as beaurocratic reasons or not having the tools /
resources to pursue the right requirement. In the end you need to reset these
issues to enable yourself to take a different path than the death march.

A recent project of mine was put on hold due to changing requirements and lack
of focus. we waited for the client to bring the right people to the table.
Then we redrafted all governing documents and got them reapproved, sometimes
by new individuals. We made sure from the restart we had a feasible project
with well defined goals.

