I am preparing a presentation called Inconvenient Truths in IT Projects where I plan to discuss some aspects of software development that are prevalent and need to be discussed, but people don’t like to talk about in polite company.

Some of the topics I’m throwing around:

  • No matter how hard you try, your estimates will be wrong.
  • The more an organization proclaims they are “doing agile” the less likely they are using it in a way where they (or more likely their clients) will get true advantage from it.
  • Your IT organization is trying to do too much.
  • There is no such thing as “best practice”
  • Complexity is not the best way to deal with complexity.
  • The plan you created at the beginning of the project is wrong.
  • A (potentially sizable) portion of scope creep is a result of learning
  • The more complicated your process is, the less likely your teams will follow it.
  • In the absence of an understandable, actionable strategy, people will make up their own

Do you like any of those?

Are there some that are missing?

Let me know in the comments.

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