Therefore speak I to them in parables, because seeing, they see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand.
Matthew 13:13
Ever wondered how miserable some “prestigious” businesses are, and how they manage to make their employees make up for poor project management? Me too! A classical situation that contributes to crisis is miscommunication to subcontractors or employees. Let’s see how UML can be used to study such antipatterns. They happen unintentionally, don’t they? 🤔
This is a real-world use-case from a prestigious legal office located in Warsaw, Poland. I have been asked to capture project management antipatterns, as an external observer and modeller.
One use case was: an expert subcontractor asked proactively, in fact several times, to be put in the communication loop with the client. But the office executives didn’t find it necessary (why would they, huh?). Until… Guess when? The deadline! The subcontractor was caught by surprise: please deliver for the customer by today! But wait, what customer…? 🤔
Another use case: the office rushed promising the client something they couldn’t deliver, and reached out for its experts for help pretty late.. Guess when? On the deadline day!
Here is the UML model that I promised, a good illustration of this poor management practice! I will use a sequence diagram, a powerful tool to explore interactions 💪
See the source code: here and here.
You certainly agree this is not professional but would probably argue that this doesn’t happen to ErnstYoung, PWC and other big companies… Would you?