To crush their spirit and hear the lamentations of the stakeholders

I love the hopeless optimism of project managers working on their first software project.

That gleam in their eye that says “I am confident that I have accounted for every detail and nothing will go wrong. You developer chaps just need to write the code given in the spec and we’ll ship this product on time and on budget.”

Watching their spirit get crushed and the light in their eyes go out as the project enters its six month of death march is always a sight to behold.

And a valuable teaching moment.