Discussion on:

Not enough pizza? Why your tech projects are failing to deliver

I have 2 comments, I Think that in countries like mine (Mexico) in most companies is very difficult to implement this approach because the IT departments are lack of people, one single person has a lot of responsabilities to do, so there is no enough people to build small teams for each small part of the project.

I Think too, that with this approach the main Project Leader must be very cautious with the integration between the sub-projects, It could become a puzzle.

Regards,

What if you've got a really fat b*st*rd on the team who eats two pizzas on his own every couple of hours? Alternatively, you could have about 16 supermodels living on two pizzas a month.

Not sure the 'two-pizza' model is a real unit of programming.

I'll keep the super models and you can keep the pizza. I'll even throw in a 6-pack of Bud if you like

If I'm giving you the supermodels, I want some proper beer. A Keg of Webster's Penine bitter, oh and I like pizza hot.

Yes, standards must be upheld. No wonder the state of the profession has fallen on such hard straits.

"for instance provision of computing infrastructure"

Spoken like a regular B-school bozo; zero depth, maximum hand-waving and a 2 decade old buzz-word.

"The answer, and what Wardley found works well for companies, is to break down IT projects into smaller and smaller pieces, until each piece represent a distinct and cohesive activity, for instance provision of computing infrastructure."
Duuuhhh! No brainer! Break the problem up into small manageable bites. Anyone see the Simpson's episode when Bart got the teacher drunk?

That you pick a lifecycle that suits the project, not mangle the project to make it fit the "best" lifecycle. Unfortunately the panacea merchants and their marks are still in full control. Best of luck with your efforts, but a bit of advice, don't hold your breath waiting for a broad take up of these ideas. If the fact that we keep making a complete mess of a significant proportion of projects and the costs of doing so has still not percolated through IT management, I see little hope of a change of approach, and absolutely nothing in your argument that would be the hook that sold the idea that not all IT projects are the same.

What is the difference between the two-pizza rule (yum) and Agile? I thought Agile was breaking down projects into easy-to-define deliverables.

Our rule in our current 4-person shop is that we don't develop anything that cannot be done by one person working alone. If it _requires_ two or more people, then chances are it is too big for us, especially if we want to be cross-trained and have any of the 4 of us able to support and debug. And while one person may do all the development work, we all do the design and job acceptance stuff together.

Does the two pizza rule effectively mean that big eaters have to work harder as there are less members in the team? Hardly fair if you ask me.

While I don't know about the article(Just how many slices should someone eat?). I agreed with the title. I missed breakfast and I think I'd be more productive if someone gave me a pizza.

Ever heard of Work Breakdown Structure? WBS is an essential tool in project management used for breaking down the work until you get to work package level that is no longer in duration than 8 - 80 hours per resource.

Misleading title! I was going to show this to my CEO to convince her we needed daily pizza parties