This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Keith Ray. Original Post: Death March Projects Feed Title: MemoRanda Feed URL: http://homepage.mac.com/1/homepage404ErrorPage.html Feed Description: Keith Ray's notes to be remembered on agile software development, project management, oo programming, and other topics. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Keith Ray Latest Posts From MemoRanda

A Death March Project is one where the participants know the likelihood of success is very low from the very start. Wikipedia adds "Often, the death march will involve desperate attempts to right the course of the project by asking team members to work especially grueling hours, weekends (sometimes with a straight face), or by attempting to 'throw (enough) bodies at the problem' with varying results, often causing burnout."

I think one nugget of valuable information in the book Death March is that death march projects are never truly important projects. (The participants may be told it’s important, but really important projects are given more of what they need to succeed.) Thus death march projects are likely to be cancelled, even if someone turns around the development/technical side of things to successfully deliver working software.

I don't know if there is a word or phrase (bad management is too broad) to describe companies where death march conditions (particularly overtime) are the norm.

If you're on a death march project, remember that you have choices. You could work normal hours knowing that the doomed project would likely fail or be canceled even if you worked overtime. You could try to turn it around into a technical success, aware that a political success is very unlikely. You could look for another job or project. You could even try to convince the sponsors to cancel the project early and invest in something more likely to succeed.