HOW TO PREDICT THE OUTCOME of a software development project? Raganwald suggests, among other things:

Sitting here typing this, I think the company who can do the best job of predicting the outcome of software development projects is Inkling Markets. That’s because their entire business is about finding a way for people to communicate what they really think of something, not just what they think other people want them to say about something.

to which witten adds:

However, I think there’s an even easier solution. Simply ask people what they think! No need for fancy buying and selling of virtual shares. If the project manager just went around periodically asking people working on a release about their opinion on the state of the release, a lot of the bottled-up warning signs and valuable risk information could actually be communicated appropriately, well before the post-mortem.

Out of many ways to estimate whether a software project will be delivered, I think polling people involved might be the least reliable one.

Which doesn’t say much about, say, developers’ ability to predict their outcomes as it does about the collective psyche of a development team.

Not to suggest that good communication isn’t essential for every venture, including software project. But you know that people don’t just communicate to exchange information; there’s a lot of buying, selling, and power gaming involved.

So asking a developer involved in the project what he thinks is the success % triggers a method that ultimately produces a value designed to cover said developer’s ass while not really saying much about the project’s chances.

Holding a poll among kibitzers and bystanders might yield less biased results. If your firm has 100+ people, betting on projects would bring new energy to the watercooler chat, though I’m not sure how well would you sleep if you knew 70 of your coworkers say you’ll fail. In the end, such a game would bring more harm than good.

A possible solution would be to let the customer bet on your success. Instead of your PM giving a boring Powerpoint on a weekly status, the customer’s rep would give you an up-to-date score of your project based on the customer’s perception. And how could that be boring, ever! The customer isn’t a disinterested observer, but politics notwithstanding, he’s in it to win. And given the chance, he’ll tell you how he rates your work, no problem.

The question then is, do we as consultants, contractors, vendors ever dare to ask?