Chicken (game) - Schedule Chicken & Project Management

Schedule Chicken & Project Management

The term "Schedule Chicken" is used in project management and software development circles. The condition occurs when two or more areas of a product team claim they can deliver features at an unrealistically early date because each assumes the other teams are stretching the predictions even more than they are. This pretense continually moves forward past one project checkpoint to the next until feature integration begins or just before the functionality is actually due.

The practice of "Schedule Chicken" often results in contagious schedules slips due to the inter-team dependencies and is difficult to identify and resolve, as it is in the best interest of each team not to be the first bearer of bad news. The psychological drivers underlining the "Schedule Chicken" behavior in many ways mimic the Hawk-Dove or Snowdrift model of conflict.

Read more about this topic:  Chicken (game)

Famous quotes containing the words chicken, project and/or management:

    Filling her compact & delicious body
    with chicken paprika, she glanced at me
    twice.
    John Berryman (1914–1972)

    Treat the cow kindly, boys; remember she’s a lady—and a mother.
    —Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management of external things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.
    Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)