just kicked two of my guys out of the office for the night, and forbade
them to come back until tomorrow morning. the $100k+ software system
we installed a couple weeks ago will have its marketing debut on
wednesday, so the office is in the pre-demo crunch. tensions are, as
you may imagine, running a bit high. i told the guys to leave because
they were too worn out to see how tired they were.
thing is, the work they were planning to do overnight is unnecessary.
the basic system is configured and stable, and all the important parts
work. even most of the niceties are there.. the stuff they wanted to
exhaust themselves over is inconsequential.
the tension in the situation comes from a textbook case of not knowing
when to flinch. running a project, i've decided, is a lot like playing
chicken. you start off slow and build momentum, then you have to keep
your nerve up to the last minute. that doesn't mean face-planting
someone else's radiator, it means knowing the last possible second you
can dodge safely, and staying on course until then.
in this case, i have managers losing their nerve and demanding that we
twiddle things that may well kill the entire system. they don't see
the matter in those terms, naturally.. the things they want seem easy
from the user's point of view.. but we can't make them work reliably
within the next 36 hours.
i have to admit that i'm awfully proud of my staff. they're fighting
to keep the system we demo clean enough and stable enough that we can
roll it into production as soon as the dancing is done. that's not to
say they want a complete feature freeze for production, based on what
can be made for the demo. rather, they don't want to demo things which
will be impossible, or prohibitively expensive, to do in a production
environment.
in that, i feel i've trained them well. the people Up Above keep
telling me that they realize the extra features will take more
development time, and that they understand the reality of schedule slip.
they do, that is, until a client walks in waving a checkbook, and
wanting the feature we said can't be implemented for another three
months. then all of a sudden we get the lecture about "meeting customer
expectations" and "speed to market".
i wish i could say i'm surprised that my managers, who are both
intelligent people with a fair amount of real-world experience, have
lost focus that badly in the eleventh hour. unfortunately, i've seen
the same thing happen enough other times that it just makes me tired.
tomorrow, when both sides show up in the morning, they're going to see
my solution on the whiteboard. i've written up a list of all the
features in contention, and blocked off two sections below it:
-------------------------------------------------------------
|
we will include the | none of the features
features above in the | above will be required
demo, as long as it is | in production until they
recognized that these | can be installed easily,
features cannot be | and maintained reliably.
supported in production. |
|
|
and i'm going to tell each side to sign the appropriate half before they
waste any more time arguing. i know the techs will be willing to sign,
but i doubt the managers will. with luck, it will at least encourage a
rational discussion of what we need to have, and what can be put on hold
until, say, friday.
mike stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'net geek..
been there, done that, have network, will travel.
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