planning a vacation during these weeks”. A second
version of the schedule committing the release dates and feature sets would then be distributed.
Another item that is useful in global project teams is an explicit statement of the overall project goals. An example of such a statement is “Quality will have a higher priority than schedule, which will have a higher priority than functionality.” Such an explicit statement helps project managers make the inevitable trade-offs that must be made right before a release. We have found in the past that cultural bias exists that will influence such trade-offs at a local level, unless such an explicit statement of goals exist.