90% Syndrome....

Umpteen times during project management reviews, I must have heard the phrase “90% complete”. And I am sure that I am not the only one. This seems to be a common bug especially in our software industry across the world.

What does it really mean? This means that you should now start doubting actual work completion, even 90% may not be correct. For whatever reason, the project team has missed the schedule and trying very hard to cope up with the estimates. Maybe last 10% will later to be found as the real 90% pending. Hence whenever I hear this phrase, I get goose bumps.

 

It is those little tasks that was thought to be tackled at a later date; those complex algorithms procrastinated to be dealt at a later stage; documentation that was felt can be done towards the end; so on and so forth, form these last leg of the project, which in fact is never 10% rather much more than that. This sends a signal to you that you did a mistake in choosing the team leader who is a novice and in addition does not have much experience on the ground. But it is now too late. Most of the time, this last leg eats away all the savings from the project and creates displeasure for both the team as well as the customer even after putting in so much of effort and time in the project.

Simple advice from experience is to stay away from this ‘90% syndrome’ from the day one of the review cycle.