97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know

Chapter 77. Should You Under-Promise, or Over-Deliver?

Joe Zenevitch

AT THE END OF THE PROJECT, deliver less than you said you would, and you are a bad software project manager. Deliver more than you said you would, and you're the hero. Actually, you should strive to deliver exactly what you promised. No more, no less.

New project managers, eager to please, let business people/customers continue to add features, even as the team's capacity to deliver them shrinks. The business people, thinking that the project manager has things under control, take advantage of this opening, and the onslaught of new features continues.

Afraid to show weakness, the green PMs just sweat it out and hope they can deliver. But as the project end date draws near, it may become obvious that the features list will not be finished. The process of cutting features, not necessarily the newest additions, grudgingly begins. The formerly happy business people are now planning the termination, or at least the post-release punishment, of the project manager.

The experienced PMs know that they are going to have to be firm from day one. Anything that resembles a new feature, or a change in scope, will be met with pushback from the PM. He/she reminds the business owners that only so many features will fit into each release.^[24] If something new comes up, it must be deferred to a future release or substituted for a planned ...