Comment by specialist

2 months ago

Thanks for clarifying. Sympathies.

I've been on every side of this conundrum. Not being allowed to improve/fix stuff is super frustrating, very demoralizing.

I can quickly recall 3 separate projects where we weren't allowed to fix stuff on new products that hadn't shipped yet (not even beta). (Oops, just thought of 2 and 1/2 more projects.)

It's hard to not treat that as beligerent, spiteful, gatekeeping, control issues. For me, half the time it absolutely was.

I've also managed legacy code bases that we dare not accidentally breathe on. Somewhere between archaeology and necromancy.

For me, when I'm in charge, project (engineering) management comes down to mitigating risk, usually by driving down the cost of change. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir.

Alas, it's been a long time since I've been on a project that had anything resembling proper PMI, QA, Test, etc. So there's really no process or strategy to mitigate risks.

IIRC, the contemporary deliberate rejection of process is called something like the "Argyle" Methodology. Or maybe it's "Agile". Or "Argh-gargle". I don't quite remember. I can dig up those books and links, if anyone is pervously curious.