Surviving at the Software Industry (11) - Let's Go To Paradise Falls!

We are on the last stage of preparation of our project! Isn't that exciting? I think it is. We just have to make our last preparations so we can roll. We will be talking about a movie that is none other than the second animated movie nominated for Best Picture in all history: Up. 

Carl and Ellie wanted to travel to Paradise falls to meet their hero. From the moment they got married, they had a can where they put all the extra money they had every day. When Ellie was a kid, she had planned how the travel would have been and she added some pictures and stamps to her book so she wouldn't forget anything. Of course, life happened and they had to postpone their trip for ever. 

I'm gonna skip the saddest part of the movie by talking about our last stage. As of right now we just have to estimate. We have to calculate how much time are we gonna take on every stage, our milestones the costs, everything. We already have everything planned and this is adding like a cherry to our milkshake. Everything has to look great on paper. I remember Ken told us once on our TI2011 course that if we wanted to estimate right we had to multiply our first estimate by two and then work on the next time unit. So if we would be taking 3 weeks on the project, we would actually be working on it 6 months. Crazy, right? Maybe just as crazy as making a house flying with balloons.

We also have to consider that we can't just escape on a flying property of the real work. We have to take in consideration other factors such as marketers, tendencies and sudden / unexpected changes. The best way to deal with these situations is by having a stage delivery plan. 

We have talked a lot about our delivery plans. I remember how people from ISC who are now graduates always told us that when we were on projects such as Taller Vertical, we had to ALWAYS have a deliverable. So, when we were thinking of building a flying house, we couldn't be preparing the balloons, the helium and the house from the beginning. We should start by having a flying bicycle, then a flying apartment, and so on. This process could be time consuming, but it is always best to do it this way. If we have a sudden change, we can go back to a decent stage and not starting from the beginning. It is also important to deliver the releases to our client, so they can see the advances on the project and mention if something's off.

Now we have to talk about risk and vision. Have we analyzed how safe it is to travel to another hemisphere on a helium-based flying house? I'm guessing not. We have to be sure that we are aware of the most risks we can manage and how would we deal with them. Our vision has to be our inspiration. It has to be clear and it has to help you and your team to keep moving forward on the same direction. If not, we wouldn't land on Paradise Falls.

By having an awesome and inspired team with our authority on the same line of thought, nothing is gonna stop us to find these lovely waterfalls.