Ja mach nur einen Plan ...

Ja mach nur einen Plan …

Bernd G. Wenzel

Software Process and Software Quality

Part 03: Planning

Prof. (FH) Dipl.-Inform. Bernd G. Wenzel

Rev.:2014-10-01 FH-Vorarlberg / ITM / Softwareprozess und Softwarequalität: Planning Slide 3

Softwareprozess und Softwarequalität

Introduction

Motivation

Planning

Requirements Management

Design

Development

Test

Verification and Validation

Quality Management

(Software) Lifecycle Management


Planning

Observations about Plans

Good Planning

Planning Framework

Conclusions


The Basic Problem

Human Factors make Plans Worse

Political Factors make Plans Worse Again

Then Plans are Used in the Wrong Way


The Basic Problem

All plans are necessarily flawed

We plan for the future which we cannot know fully

Facets

What I don‘t know

knowingly or not

What I think I know

but don‘t

Quotes

Winston Churchill:

Predictions are difficult, especially if they pertain to the future

General Tommy Franks:

Even the best war plan does not survive the first encounter with the enemy




The Basic Problem





Human Factors make Plans Worse (1)

We prefer bad plans in spite of best intentions

Short term vs long term decsions

We make bad short term decisions even when we fully understand the long term

consequences

e. g. smoking, drinking, dieting, debt

Resonant advice vs useful advice

We accept expert advice, if it is close to what we expect, it it sounds familiar

Familiarity has nothing to do with likelihood

Military: „fighting the last war“

Is this the expert advice we need?

Simple advice vs complicated advice

We prefer simple advice

Nobody is interested in a complicated plan as it will be complicated in all the

wrong ways

But If the truth were simple, we would have found it long ago

Reality is usually complicated, but complicated plans are not always right




We prefer bad plans in spite of best intentions (cont.)

Focused attention vs holistic attention

We focus on the at maximum handful of near things, the things we think we understand

But there may be thousends of things influencing the final result

Our focus may actually draw attention and effort away from where it should be

But nobody can handle thousends of factors properly

We need to focus on the most relevant ones

What are they?

We need to learn from the past

Transparent planning vs non-transparent planning

Different processes delivering suprisingly similar results

The distinguishing factor is trust

Optimism

We think we can handle more than we can

and don‘t realize this




We prefer bad plans in spite of best intentions (cont.)

Whishful thinking

Wanting/intending is easier than doing/following through

Peer pressure

Being Cassandra isn‘t fun

Analyzing worst cases is considered to be uncooperative by bosses as well as

colleagues

Brain scans do not allow to distinguish between

accepting an obvious lie due to peer pressure

perceiving the thruth

Social truth!

Rational bias

We over-estimate negative impacts

to provide a safety cushion for error




The Basic Problem





Political Factors make Plans Worse Again (1)

Planning is subject to power games

HiPPO effect

Voluntary tendency to follow the Highest Paid Person‘s Opinion

What the most powerful person wants to hear!

Not necessarily the truth!

Apple:

Steve Job‘s „Reality Distortion Zone“

Fig leaf for HiPPOs

„I never told them to lie to me“

Authorization power

Reviewing plans before authorizing their resp. execution is good in principle

Gatekeepers role

is to ensure plans meet minimal quality standards

is not to change substantial contents of plans

Such as resource requirements, target dates, …



Political Factors make Plans Worse Again (2)

Planning is subject to power games (cont.)

Power abuse

Gatekeepers have the power to say NO

Gatekeepers are subject to the same human and political factors as anybody else

Consequence:

Even the best gatekeepers will abuse power occasionally

No gatekeeper will admit abusing power

We need „cowboys“

Grace Hopper:

It is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission




The Basic Problem





Then Plans are Used in the Wrong Way (1)

Plans to create the illusion of rationality

but we can rationalize everything

provided it is profitable for ourselves

First we use our distorted reality to make plans

then we use these plans to distort our reality

We use plans to disguise our lack of understanding by going

from what should be done

which it at least partially unknown

to the fully and well known plan

which we know is at least partially wrong

By repeating the plan over and over again – like a mantra –

we will convince of our plan

first our superiors

and ultimately ourselves



Then Plans are used in the Wrong Way (2)

Psychologically half empty ≠ half full

Loss matters more for us than gain

Experiment

Let‘s assume you know two therapies for an absolutely deadly epedemy

Selecting therapy 1 will save the lives of 35% of the patients treated

Selecting therapy 2 means 65% of the patients treated will die

Question

Which therapy would you choose?

We prefer to err through inaction

With deviation from the plan comes responsibility

Changing the plan is perceived as loss

unless the value gained is at least twice as much as the cost of the change

Such opportunities have most probably been identified during the original planning




Plans become promises

we must not change

An estimate becomes a commitment

BTW

This so-called anchoring effect of numbers works even in totally unrelated cases

and gets worse with multi-tasking

We prefer plans we have developed / contributed to ourselves

The more our superiors repeat the plan, the more we believe in it

We don‘t want to give up the consistency and certainty provided by a plan

even if we know it is wrong

Planning schizophrenia

Plans need to be stable and to change at the same time

Think of the political spectrum




Plans are used as weapons

Offensive use

Superiors may be more interested in following the plan to the letter than in achieving

results

Micromanagement!

Superiors just love to move authority up and responsibility down a hierarchy

That‘s why non-superiors are not supportive for planning

The blame of not having followed the plan then goes down to those doing the

actual work

Defensive use

Pretending to have a plan

„We followed the plan“

but reality didn‘t




The Basic Problem






Planning


Good Planning

Planning Framework

Conclusions

Good Planning

Why we should Plan though?

What is Good Planning?

Let‘s be Less Wrong!


Why we should Plan though? (1)

Planning helps to establish common goals

Common goals help to co-ordinate actions

Planning helps to identify and define concrete and useful tasks

Concrete and useful tasks help to counter the bad habit of procrastination

Planning helps to reflect and understand whatever situation needs to be considered

avoiding our cave man heritage of acting before reflection

Planning helps to establish / see the big picture

avoiding to get lost in just another low level task

which is of course very well understood

Planning gives time before taking decisions

Time we can use to consider objectives and priorities


Good Planning

Why we should Plan though? (2)

Planning gives time before acting

Action without a plan is doomed to failure

What will surely fail we shouldn‘t do

Planning gives time to explore and appreciate alternatives

The more alternatives we explore, the better prepared we will be for the unexpected

Carl von Clausewitz:

Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential

Planning gives us (the impression / illusion of) control

(The impression / illusion of) Control improves our mental and physical health

Planning enables us to „fly to the Moon“

which is more fun, more interesting, and less boring than doing day to day work

but also more risky

Note: we didn‘t speak of perfection or success here at all!


Good Planning

Good Planning





What is Good Planning? (1)

Plan as best as you can, but no more

No formal planning needed

if total effort < 50 person hours

If workforce < 5

Start with collecting all immediately available information

Look at easily available short term history

Only when you‘re thinking you can do better than copying the competition or the past: BDUF

(Big Design Up Front)

≈ 20% of expected total effort

expected ≠ hoped

expected ≠ guessed

expected ≠ demanded


Good Planning

What is Good Planning? (2)

Limitations to planning effort

Too much planning will waste planning effort when the plan needs to be changed

Too little planning effort will cause risks and create problems during plan execution

The more unknowns we have, the looser the planning

Trade-off between losses caused by

plan changes

realized risks

Let‘s be less wrong, somewhere in between


Good Planning

Good Planning






Observations

We all want to be right, nobody wants to be less wrong

There is only one future, we all want to predict this future precisely

Benjamin Franklin:

„If you fail to plan, your plan will fail“

Common believe:

The result cannot be better than the plan

Although this is human, this is bullshit

As we have seen, we need to have a plan

any plan is not enough

a perfect plan is not possible

avoiding all the planning pitfalls is not possible

we still cannot predict the future

So let‘s have realistic expectations about our plans and

Let‘s try to be less wrong


Good Planning

Good Planning






Planning


Good Planning

Planning Framework

Conclusions

context

Planning Framework (1)


StakeholdersOpportunities

have interest in

Requirements

provide

Intended Result

are impacted by

fulfills

Work Resources

Way of Working

contribute to

do

scope & constrain

set up to address

support


Result

Whatever we want to plan

Stakeholders

OR

Have an advantage of the result

Have a problem with the result

Sponsor the planning

Do the planning

Sponsor the plan execution

Execute the plan

Opportunities

Detailed advantages and disadvantages of our result



Requirements

Detailed and verifiable description of what we know about our result

Functionally

Technically

Organizationally

Contextually

…

Work

Everything we need to do to achieve the result

consistent with the structure of the result

at a reasonable level of detail



Resources

Human resources

Financial resources

Tools and equipment

Space

Time

…

Way of Working

Processes

Techniques

Methods

Methodologies

…



Context

Everything able to cause a plan change or a plan execution risk

e. g. by impacting

intended result

stakeholders

opportunities

requirements

work

resources

way of working

…



Planning


Good Planning

Planning Framework

Conclusions

Conclusions

We cannot create perfect, correct, and 100% precise plans

for logical reasons

for psychological reasons

for political reasons

Plans are used very often in the wrong way in addition

Consequently we should not try to create perfect, correct, and 100% precise plans

We should do expectation management with regard to our plans, instead

We need to settle for plans which are less wrong

We need to go for a reasonable degree of detail, taking into account the risks

Our planning framework helps us in doing so

Guiding us through our information collection task



Planning


Good Planning

Planning Framework

Conclusions


Softwareprozess und Softwarequalität

Introduction

Motivation

Planning

Requirements Management

Design

Development

Test

Verification and Validation

Quality Management

(Software) Lifecycle Management

Date post:	05-Dec-2014
Category:	Business
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