Software-process-antipatterns-catalogue

Home > Catalogue > Death By Planning

Death By Planning

Also Known As: Detailitis Plan

Summary

Excessive planning on all organization levels, leading to complex schedules with an unnecessary level of detail (often as a result of cost tracking and staff utilization monitoring). Detailed plans give the false perception that the project is fully under control while development actually slows down because of excessive planning activities.

Symptoms

• team members with development roles engage often in activities belonging to project management
• time spent reported on planning or similar activities noticeably high in comparison to those actually pertinent to given role
• many artifacts with “plan” title / type, with the number growing over the course of the project

Specific To

primarily waterfall-ish projects

Related Anti-patterns

Anti-pattern	Relation
Analysis Paralysis	similar in kind (overhead rather than primary activities)

Sources

[BRO’98]

This site is open source. Improve this page.