First off, a typo on page 3 - Local Safety. "What is frigthening..."
should be frightening.

Page 4 - Lateness is Passed Down the Schedule. I'm not sure this is
really making the point I think you are trying to make as effectively as
it could. This is my alternative, for the sentence on line 5. "In that
case, Task 4 *still only* starts on time, *assuming* Task 3 is finished
on time."

Also, on page 5, I think that task is an appropriate work for the unit
of work you're discussing, and the the Figure 1.3 caption should also
use this term. It needs to be "Task *4* will start late if either task
2 or task *3* finishes late".

Finally (for this section :) I didn't think the lasy paragraph was as
effective as it could be again. My alternative would be "The problem
arises because, as we've already established, tasks will rarely finish
early, and when tasks start late the lateness will get passed down the
schedule. Because early task completion is rare, it is even more rare
that a task such as task 4 in Figure 1.3 gets to start ealy. Because
late task completion is common, its is even more common that a task such
as task 4 ... gets to start late".

The Task Independence section completely threw me. It may just be me
(as with all the above!), but my brain thought you were talking about
technical dependencies, and actually you were talking about estimate
dependencies. Given that we try to avoid technical dependencies in agile
planning (between XP stories at least), and you are saying that estimate
dependencies are unavoidable, I got confused. I've got no contructive
suggestions though, other than to wonder whether the diferentiation
could be made clearer.

In "Multi-tasking", I think it is the context-switching that is the key
to understanding why it is ineffective, but you only mention is in
passing at the very end. Could more be made of this?

And lastly, in "No Wondwer We're Often Late", the word "causes" in the
middle of line 8 felt wrong. Not sure why, but I thought I'd mention
it. Actually, reading it again it may be something to do with the word
being used in the line above?

Hope that's useful.

Karl

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ - World Wide Wonderland

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