On a less technical note than Tim... you never know. I repeatedly run into problems where I cannot test the student view because, apparently, the view is that if I am the institution administrator, I must not be a student. So I need a separate identity for this. And I have had -- am currently having -- problems with apps that assume that the faculty are never students. I am here to tell you it ain't necessarily so. To begin with, there are about two dozen professors taking a class in how to run an online class, and dozens more taking some sort of phys ed class. That's not counting the people who are taking photography or whatever for the fun of it.
I do feel your pain on the scope creep. Hopefully you are being paid by the hour? Good to hear there's already a different plan for next time. Dana >but there will NEVER be an instance in the real world where the >administrator and the end user are one in the same. The admins are city >employees and the end user are council members. But I will put in the code >that will automatically log you out when you close the tab/browser. Anyway, >this is the kind of stuff I am dealing with. Of course I had one error where >I forgot to put in a hidden variable in a CFIF statement, but this is why I >am having him test it. I test the apps to the specs. It is up to the users >to break it. Of course I try to break it, but I cannot come up with every >single one-off scenario that the users can come up with. > >Well I basically bit the bullet on this one and spent the day debugging from >home without pay (long story, stupid city politics). Anyway, I could not >come up with any errors and I tried to be as stupid as I could be with the >freaking app. > >So hopefully on Monday he will be happy with the results. > > >And yes, you are right. It is a project management issue. When I interviewed >for the job, it was only supposed to take 200 hours, and I am still working >on it (started in December). The specs that I was shown at the interview led >me to believe that the apps could be done in that amount of time, but once I >had meetings with the stakeholders, I realized that the information I was >given at the interview was merely the tip of the iceberg. Couple that with >the fact that one of the most knowledgeable persons that I talked to was not >even aware that I was doing this until I was well into the project. Once he >caught wind of what I was doing, he asked me to show him what I had so far >and basically threw a 24" monkey wrench into the system and set me back >several weeks. Of course I have been keeping my manager up to date with my >progress and issues that come up. But of course it is his manager that is >giving him shit about how long it is taking to do this. He is a bean counter >and only sees $$, not the real world shit. > >Fortunately the next project that they have me do, I get to call all the >shots. BA, PM, Programmer. So at least I will know from the onset what is >going to be involved so I can give a realistic estimate on the app. Hell, he >is giving me 200 hours on this one just to spec out the app. > >Anyway, thanks all for letting me vent. I feel very much better today. > > >Bruce > >-----Original Message----- >From: Dana Tierney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 1:26 PM >To: CF-Community >Subject: Re: I need an opinion > > >I have had a similar problem, where the person who would sign off on a >project was telling me that she did not want to see it again until it was >"fixed." In that the "problem" was the warning that flash apps give when you >run them locally and you click on a link, this was a mite difficult. She did >not want me to change the setting on her computer that the warning said to >change. On the other hand she did not want to actually have it loaded on the >server until she saw that it "worked." Worked is in quotes here because it >won't write a score to a file as advertised until someone gets around to >telling me the path to the Perl installation. Anyway, this particular >impasse was resolved when I explained matters to the guy with the password >to the webserver, and he loaded it into a test folder on the server for me. >Voila, error message gone. > >I guess if you are looking for us to say if you are right or wrong, I would >need to know what these bugs are. Are they real bugs? Are they bugs in the >sense that a user is getting a message he/she does not understand but that >you are not being given the means to fix? Are they strange Windows error >messages the user is getting because he/she is doing something wierd? > >In my opinon what you have is a project management problem, with, it sounds >like, a lack of proper project management going on. You are the programmer >not the project manager, sure, but in order to avoid becoming the person >that these problems happen to, you may have to implement some management >techniques. Agile methodolgies might avoid this in the future, yes, but for >this situation... when the scope creep happened, was this documented and >signed off on? What project documents were you given in the first instance? > >If the answer to the above questions is "not much" I'd suggest that you get >the current sutuation documented --- what exactly it is that everyone wants >fixed. Put the ball in their court. You can play CYA too you know, and >honestly -- I have had one of these drag out over full-time work for several >months. I'd be embarrassed to tell you what this made my hourly rate for the >project. I became a believer. > >If what you are giving them is not what what they want, it is only fair that >they should tell you what they do in fact want. This may take some meetings, >and much as I dislike them myself, sometimes that is what you need -- a nice >meeting followed by a memo of confirmation. > >Hope that helps >Dana ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Upgrade to Adobe ColdFusion MX7 The most significant release in over 10 years. Upgrade & see new features. http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion?sdid=RVJR Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:233487 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
