Had a Bad Day

Anytime you have a conversation with a developer involving the following: "NO! The error message displayed to the user can't say 'the stored procedure failed''... "what do you mean why? Because they have no idea what that means, that's why", it's a bad day.

Tags:work

• IT
• tech

Right Hand... Meet Left Hand

Today at work I overheard 2 conversations which were going on simultaneously..

one on the right side of my desk on how we need to cut budget on our project. What does the consultants statement of work say? What will happen if we need to scale them back?

on the left side of my desk: ok, we need to add the xml conversion to what the consultants are doing because we don’t have the bandwidth. (note: the consultants are involved in this discussion). How much does that increase your scope of work and cost?

hmmm……

Agile Conversation of the Day

Today after sitting through the review of the business case document for the next big project (NBP), I asked the question I really wanted answered: are we using Agile for this project, as has been rumored? Then this conversation ensued:

Business owner: I don't even know what Agile is. I keep hearing development wants to use it, but they don't tell us what it is. How am I supossed own a project when I don't understand the process?

Project Manager: I've heard what Agile is. It's when you don't do alot of analysis upfront, instead the Business Analysts just work directly with the developers so you don't really need specs. You break up the work into something called "iterations" where you build part of the code, but it doesn't always come out the way you want, so you have to re-do it or "iterate" on what you've already built.

The bubble above my head says: { sweet Jesus! She's clueless! I've got to get out of this room}

Tags:work

• agile_development
• office_insanity

Agile Quote of the Day

by the Agile Evangelist from my office...


Ability to thrive in chaos is an important trait in the successful Agile project member




ok, sure ability to thrive in chaos can be a valuable trait, but shouldn't chaos be the exception, not the rule. Shouldn't we want to not deliberately create chaos to thrive in? Is it just me?

Tags:work

• agile
• development

Agile Quote of the Day #2

There are many flavors of Agile, we are using just one and it's not the willy nilly, totally chaotic kind

Tags:work

• agile
• development

Agile Quote of the Day

We're trying Agile Development at work (because if you don't like how things are going: change the process or have a reorg. Dealing with the actual issues.. no way!)

Almost every day my mouth falls open as I encounter yet another principal of or factoid about Agile that goes against everything I've learned and experienced in 8 years in the software industry. The Agile evangelist in my office can really come up with some doozies.. so without further ado, I give the first, in what I'm sure will be many Agile quotes of the day:

Planning makes projects inefficient

Tags:work

• agile
• development

Roles & Responsibilities

Lately I've been thinking about roles & responsibilites in the office: how they are officially defined, the reality of who does what and further how this affects employees rewards and incentives.

I've noticed that in every office I've worked in there are at least a couple of people who get to do whatever they want, no matter what their job title. I watch and study them, and their trick, it seems to me, is two-fold:
1. They actively persue and insert themselves into the areas in which they wish to be involved. These areas tend to (totally coincidently!) be the areas that provide the most exposure to higher ups. They get themselves invited to meetings, they inject their options and just act as if they are in charge of whatever is issue of the day. Eventually, this person's behavior becomes part of the culture and others just assume this is the correct person to be involved.

2. They pretend that things they are uninterested in persueing are outside of their responsibility, even if they clearly are part of their job. If such a task comes up in a meeting, they will sit, mute, waiting for someone else to volunteer to take on the work and if that doesn't happen, they will go so far as to suggest someone to fullfill the responsibility. If that person balks, they will be chided with some sort of "not being a team player" speech (usually: there's no I in team, you know).

This is how at my last job, I, a business analyst, was managing developers: making sure they got their code done, got in checked in on time, even helping them unit test it, while the "Development Manager", who was at the same level as me went off to "Strategic Sessions" to determine which project from a business perspective should be planned for the following year. Who do you think was rewarded during the next review cycle? Him, of course. See, he got all this visibility upwards AND appeared to be managing his group effectively. Meanwhile, I was doing half his job, while my own suffered... all for the "team" (there appears to be no big raise in team, by the way). Although the "team" did succeed in this case, the rewards didn't go to the team player in this case, they went to the person who put their individual accomplishment first.

What does this tell us about American business? That it's important to toot your own horn? That individual accomplishment secretly is more important than team? That men know better how to play the game? All of the above?

What was the correct way for me to act in that situation? There is no good way out. A reputation as not a team player isn't what one wants to have. Is the path to success to appear to be a team player, but secretly working towards your individual accomplishment only? Sadly, this does seem to be the case. I'm not sure how I could have made this situation better, except to make clear the way that I stepped up when the company needed me, to not let it appear that I hadn't taken on additional work, to toot my own horn, so to speak.

Tags:work

• work
• roles
• IT
• projects

What We Have Here is A Failure to Communicate

Yesterday I was on the phone with a male co-worker discussing our current project. He was asking me if I had updated a document and I've got so many things going on, I literally couldn't remember if I'd done made the changes. Then this conversation happens:

Me: I remember thinking about making the change, but I don't think I did. Let me open it up and check.
{ I scan through the document }
Me: OH! I'm a big fat liar.. I DID make the changes.
Him: You're not fat.
{ I have spotted a typo and zoom in to focus on fixing that when.. suddenly I realize what he said }
Me: What?!
Him: You said you're fat and you're not
Me: I didn't say I was fat! I said my lie was fat.
Him: All the same, you're not fat.
Me: Let's move on..

At the time I thought: that is wacky, but now that I've had time to think about it more I'm all over the map about it. Because I'm over-analytical I have many issues.

A. What?
B. How is it possible some one could misinterpret what I said?
C. I know if I'm fat or not fat. I don't need him to tell me that.
D. If I did think I were fat, do you think I would actually say I thought I was fat?
E. If the answer to D is yes, wouldn't I be some pathetic low self-esteem person trying to fish for someone to tell me I'm not fat.
F. Is that what he thinks? I'm going to kick his skinny butt!
G. Most of all, I think I'm insulted at this what I think was really a thinly veiled attempt at flattery. Does he think I'm that simple? Does he think I need that kind of boosting up? Do I come across as that needy? Why would he chose that as a compliment? I mean: would he say that to a guy? I don't think so. I'm really going to kick his skinny ass!

Or maybe I just think too much. Upon further reflection I think it should just be filed in the "dumb things guys sometimes say when they are trying to be nice" file.

Tags:work

• work
• communication