There is always the great debate about throwing resources at a project to try to pull off the impossible timeframe. However, some things just take time. When I train project managers, I use an analogy of what effort driven in Microsoft Project means. I ask them, “Are you painting a fence or driving to Nashville?” If you are painting a fence and it takes 8 hours to paint the fence, then it will also take the full 8 hours of time. If you add a resource, it will still take 8 hours of effort, but will only take 4 hours of elapsed time since two people are splitting the work. If it takes you 4 hours to drive to Nashville and you add a second person, it doesn’t mean you cut the time in half. Now two people are spending 4 hours in the car so it doubles the amount of effort. This is a cleaner version of the way that I used to explain this. I used to say that you can’t always throw resources at a problem. The example I would state is that you can’t put 9 women into a room and produce a baby in a month, some things just take time. I used that for a couple of years and every once and a while, someone would be offended. So I changed it to a cleaner version for most of my trainings. However, a good friend John Ragsdale sent me this and it made me laugh. I don’t know where this originated to give it proper credit, but to whoever pulled this together….it reminded me of when I got started. Enjoy!
Definitions of Designations:
Project Manager is a person who thinks nine women can deliver a baby in one month.
Developer is a person who thinks it will take 18 months to deliver a baby.
Onsite Coordinator is one who thinks a single woman can deliver nine babies in one month.
Client is the one who doesn’t know why he wants a baby.
Marketing Manager is a person who thinks he can deliver a baby even if no woman or man is available.
Resource Optimization Team thinks they don’t need a man or woman; they’ll produce a child with zero resources.
Documentation Team thinks they don’t care whether the child is delivered; they’ll just document it in 9 months.
Quality Auditor is the person who is never happy with the PROCESS to produce a baby.
Tester is a person who always tells his wife that this is not the right baby.
HR Manager is a person who thinks that a donkey can deliver a human baby in 9 months.
