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Murphy's Wall.(trends in project management)(Editorial)
Every technologist knows about Murphy's First Law: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." Most know about the Second Law: "If it could go wrong, but hasn't yet, it will at a more inconvenient time." But few appreciate how these laws control the dynamics of R&D.
Before a project starts, its leaders believe they have foreseen all the difficulties. Optimism always reigns at the beginning, partly because the realm of things that could go wrong then really is limited. (How bad can a PowerPoint presentation be?)
As a project takes shape, more choices, commitments, and discoveries are made, and the potential for screwing up increases. Previously unknown (or underappreciated) effects and interactions appear, generally as problems. As these early anomalies are handled (or sidestepped) entirely new things go wrong. And as these new challenges are overcome, even more undesirable phenomena that couldn't have arisen earlier, now do arise. For a while, new problems seem to appear faster than old ones can be resolved.
That pile-up of new problems uncovered by prior fixes constitutes Murphy's Wall, the fundamental barrier to doing anything really new. The closer one gets to the goal, the taster more and more issues appear. Young technologists find themselves working 120 hour weeks, cynical managers begin looking for lateral transfers, pessimism increases, milestones are redefined, budgets, reapportioned. A motivated team will power though this stage, with or without additional support, but it isn't easy.
And then, if the project goes on, the last unexpected thing that can go wrong, does go wrong, and is either handled successfully--or not.
If that last unexpected problem is overcome, the project has climbed Murphy's Wall. It is hard to believe at first, but success appears dimly ahead and the atmosphere changes. People begin to look forward to whatever is coming.
Sometimes, though, that last problem is fatal, either because it cannot be overcome at all or because dealing with it will tie up more time and resources than seem justified. What happens then depends on the ...
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