Manageable Threats

Failure to provide sufficient margin for error, feature creep, and extreme work cultures, in which even attempting to negotiate scope is considered career limiting, is difficult, but these are manageable threats to project success. Successful development managers create margin for error in estimating effort and allow time to incorporate legitimate change during the development cycle. Effective managers also resist feature creep, which Gerald Weinburg notes can increase scope by as much as 50 percent after the start of a project (1995). Even hostile political environments can be mitigated by focusing the development effort on the customer’s critical priorities. At deadline time, at least the most important features will be working reliably.