Another quote from Peopleware I’d like to share (pg. 189-190):

All the projects that carry real benefit carry real risks along with them. It is the project that has some novelty, some innovation or invention, that might grab the customer’s imagination and wallet. It’s even possible your company’s most famous disaster project—the one that came in a year over schedule, at 3.5 times the cost, had loads of problems getting though system test, and still needs engineers standing around with code defibrillators just to keep it running—is still the best project your organization has done in years.

I worry about the level of risk-aversion at the University. As (also prompted by a Peopleware quote) I posted on my personal blog last week, if you’re not free to fail you’re not free.