Do regular but small studies throughout the term and not just a few weeks before the exam!

There is something called “Student Syndrome”. Remember how we used to study during our college days? 🙂 The study was always “work in progress” or in other words “unfinished”. Any time during the term if anyone asks “how is the study going? How much is complete?”, the answer would be in terms of some vague percentage! Reality was that the bulk of studies would happen a few weeks before the exams.
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You can relate this situation to any project. Ask any PM of any project “how is the study going? How much is complete?”, the answer would be in terms of some vague percentage! It’s very hard to know “how much is not done”. Therefore it’s very hard to figure out current status. Try asking any PM “how much work is remaining on your project?”. It will be a much difficult question for the PM to answer, than “how much is it complete?”

Most of the work on any project happens only during last few weeks. There is a wishful thinking that we will catch up. And hence tendency to postpone things till the end. This is very natural human behaviour. With agile, you will work with short time boxes and deliver something finished every 2 to 3 weeks. That means after every iteration (or sprint), there won’t be any work in “unfinished state”. It will be either done or not even started. Therefore, if anyone now asks you “how much is remaining?” at the end of any iteration, you can easily look at your product backlog and know that. “How much is complete?” is also known clearly since that much software is “done” and accepted at end of each iteration (or sprint). Now if you are not moving as expected, then you will know that, much sooner than at the end.

It’s like having exam every 2 weeks rather than once in 6 months! And if I am struggling with mathematics, then will it be better for me to know that within a month or at the end of 6 months?….Can I do something about it if I know it earlier? Same is true with project 🙂
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Some people, who are used to facing exam once in six months, will continue to like that system, in spite of knowing that more and more frequent feedbacks are always better! Just mental blockages 🙂

This post is a series of 7 posts. To read the previous post, please click here.

Hope you enjoyed this. Watch out for next items in this series….coming soon 🙂