Xennial Memes
Hand-drawn iceberg with a small boat beside it. A person on the boat says: "What say you first mate? O ideal days...?" Above water: "This Stuff..." with checkboxes "Level of Effort" and "Complexity". Below: "And... Other Stuff..." with 24 checklist items such as Multi-tasking, Handoffs, Approvals, Meetings, Morale, Compliance.

Project Estimates: The Iceberg Below the Waterline

An iceberg diagram shows that effort and complexity are only the visible tip of project estimates, while meetings, handoffs and interruptions lurk below. Familiar to any Xennial in the office.

Image description

Hand-drawn iceberg with a small boat beside it. A person on the boat says: "What say you first mate? O ideal days...?" Above water: "This Stuff..." with checkboxes "Level of Effort" and "Complexity". Below: "And... Other Stuff..." with 24 checklist items such as Multi-tasking, Handoffs, Approvals, Meetings, Morale, Compliance.

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A 5x5 grid of photos. Column headings across the top: DEVELOPERS, DESIGNERS, PROJECT MANAGERS, QA, SYSADMINS. Row labels down the left: SEEN BY DEVELOPERS, SEEN BY DESIGNERS, SEEN BY PROJECT MANAGERS, SEEN BY QA, SEEN BY SYSADMINS. Each cell shows a stock or pop-culture photo, such as a scientist, a toddler with paintbrushes, a man in a black turtleneck, a prisoner behind bars, and a cartoon man flipping the bird. A young man with slicked-back hair in a black tuxedo and white bow tie smirks at the camera while raising a coupe glass of champagne. Caption text above reads: "Cheers to everyone who does their own research. In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." Hand-drawn diagram with "ORGANIZATION" in a cloud at the center and arrows to eight sketches: 1 "AS MACHINE" (gears), 2 "AS ORGANISM" (tree), 3 "AS BRAIN", 4 "AS CULTURE" (bottle, music notes, cake), 5 "AS POLITICAL SYSTEM" (pyramid: "SOCIOPATHS, CLUELESS, LOSERS"), 6 "AS PSYCHIC PRISON" (barred cell), 7 "AS CHANGE, FLUX" (waves), 8 "AS INSTRUMENT OF DOMINATION" (pistol). Caption: "The 8 Metaphors of Organization… A five-level pyramid diagram titled "The Hierarchy of Innovation". Top: "Technologies of the Self" e.g., self-expression, identity management, pharmaceuticals, personalization, vanity. Next: "Technologies of Leisure" e.g., entertainment, mass media, consumer goods and services, athletics, travel. Next: "Technologies of Prosperity" e.g., systems of manufacturing, transport, energy, finance, communication, education,… Bold black sans-serif text on a white background reads "Fuck it," then a black-and-white pen-and-ink illustration of a sailing ship with billowing sails on waves, then "it." The ship stands in for the word "ship." A grid of twelve parody O'Reilly book covers, each with an animal engraving and a colored title box. Titles: Copying and Pasting from Stack Overflow; Googling the Error Message; Trying Stuff Until it Works; Writing Code that Nobody Else Can Read; The Guy Who Wrote This Is Gone; Blaming the User; Forgetting How Your Own Code Works; Changing Stuff and Seeing What Happens; Vague Understanding of Computer Science;…

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