Fake sense of urgency

(image courtesy:labs.gerbenrobijn.nl)

I had a very frustrating day in office today. I do totally understand that my project is not an ideal one. It a great specimen for a totally dysfunctional project. A prefect case study on what a project should NOT be. Add a client who doesn't give a damn about the project, you get yourself a project with no end. Frustrated team, bone headed managers, making the same mistake over and over again.

After years and years of scope creeps, no proper requirement gathering or requirement sign-offs. The project has still not seen the light of the day. There's no direction to project, just bogus Go-Live dates. Wastage of resources on weekends in a very desperate attempt to show the top brass a fake 'sense of urgency'.

With just days before the latest or the newest 'Go-Live' date, we are still suffering from scope creep. Everyday there is a new requirement, a new change, that is being added on to the scope. What we end up doing is add on to what we have to deliver and later end up fixing issues caused by proper impact analysis to new changes we take in.

Dear Client,

I know we messed up, we have two of your lines of businesses ready for you ready to use. We'll make amends to whatever we have not catered to on a priority basis in the coming releases. But we want you to start using the product and provide us with your feedback. Lets not complicate the roll out and the transition by adding more to the current scope. The current approach is not helping either of us in anyway.

Now this would work if:

• Our client is from some Bollywood movie.
• We have shown some credibility in what we done so far.
• We were professional enough and not act like greedy mercenaries trying to con the client with 'interim' solutions and 'temporary fixes'
• If we have a good Customer facing team managing customer expectations.
• A good Project Management team.

Is there a way out for us. I don't think so, IT industry in itself is a filthy industry with no credibility. It's a industry where no one owns up a project failure but you'd find many to own up a project success. It's an industry where blame chains play a far more important role than root cause analysis. CRs and Billing rates means more than what the 'Customer really wants'. Deadlines will whoosh past you. Deadlines would like seasons that come and go and never a date that has to be met. And most important, there will always be somebody to blame. So nobody gets fired for the project being delayed for all these years. 'Dud for brains' Project managers will still be managing projects.

There will still be bad days in your project where you still feel like pulling your hair out. So rather than wasting your energy worrying about this. Enjoy the 'free' internet access and occasionally crib about how much your work sucks, as you enjoy the fat paychecks for doing almost close to nothing.

Advantage YOU!!!

We'll never run out of 'tomorrows'

Coldplay - The Scientist
by itami

Live blogging a 'Go-Live'

18. New Go Live date 'tomorrow'

17. The trail transactions failed, the reason not so small. The whole implementation never considered 'migrated data'. Result: Configuration data mismatch left right center across applications.

16. Meanwhile in the Actual Outsourced IT Vendor's place. A meeting for discussing results of 'trail run' on the Production system, very solemn meeting with the subtle tone of the Project Manager's snore in the back ground.

15. While all this was happening, tomorrow went by. 'Tomorrow' went by THRICE.

New Go Live date 'tomorrow'.

14. Call Center agent setups are being done, user creation happening in the application. Call Center Agent screens not working.

13. Big hustle and bustle at the new call center, machines all booted up, but still not within the network.

12. Outsourced IT Vendor finds a loop hole- You get the a Call Center up and a arrange for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Call Center means you have 'Gone Live!'.

11. Focus now changes on getting the Call Center ready.

10. Outsourced IT Vendor is in a jinx with the date. They can't go live 'tomorrow', there is a 200 seater call center to be setup (by tomorrow).

9. Outsourced IT Vendor gets a date from it's Actual Outsourced IT vendor- it's tomorrow. WTF!

8. Post lunch there is the rumour of a 'Go-Live!' and there is a date- It's 'tomorrow'.

New Go live Date: tomorrow

7. Somewhere down south from all that's happening, there is this team working on issues and bugs, setting up and instance for a 'Parallel Run' simultaneously juggling the work to get their machines setup in the new office.

6. Outsourced IT vendor goes and ask the 'Go-Live!' date to the IT vendor to whom they have outsourced the work.

5. Implementation Vendor caught unaware, calls up the outsourced IT vendor and asks for a 'Go-Live!' date.

4. Meeting agenda changes. 'Parallel Run' changes to 'Go-Live!'. Who needs a parallel run, Who needs a proper user training. Parallel Runs and trainings are for sissies. When can you 'Go-Live!

3. IT department having a day long meeting with the New Software Implementation vendor about the 'Parallel Run' gets to know that the $h!T's hit the fan. Need to find some cover.

2. The Business users point the finger at the IT department.

1. Client's mission critical CRM and Billing application goes down for a particular LOB.

New Go Live Date: tomorrow

Mechanical

I'm doing great today morning, I slept off a bad headache yesterday night. Now i'm doing fine. I hate going to office, not because office sucks- it's just that the work sucks these days. It's just the same everyday, bitching on calls, playing the blame games. My project is nearing a big milestone, it's Going Live in a few days, but it's not going live because it's proper and ready, it's going live because there's nowhere else to go other than the deadpool.

The whole project is a case study on 'How not to do projects'. We messed up everything from 'requirement gathering' to 'development' to 'setting up the client expectations right. We made compromises, we compromised alot. We did a sham job in collaborating properly with various teams within the consortium. We had new project plans with fancy targets titled "Parallel Run', 'Cut over', 'Semi-Go Live'. We made a big joke with giving dates, it turned out to be the biggest farce in the whole project. The thing wrong about our project here is, what we are delivering is not what the client would want, what is developed is what each and every team in the consortium have developed within what they are comfortable with. Designs among applications was never aimed at 'What's best for the solution'.

In a few more hours I'll be sitting somewhere in a cubicle getting back on my daily mechanical routine of checking mails, attending calls, reading feeds etc. The only different thing today is, it's a new building. And for once, in the 4 year lifetime of this project, all the teams are placed on the same floor. That would only mean, we'd have less bitching on calls. I need a break from this. Need to get busy with something new.

I feel so mechanical when I reach office, I have to get something going, got to learn something. Got to settle down fast and get working on the 'Writer's Guild' that Vasu and me are planning for the next Dreamforce. Got to spent sometime on the shorts for Youtube thing that I been planning (got to loop in Laukik for this). Get myself to know Android.

OK, now it just struck me... I'm not just Mechanical... I'm Mechanical lazy!!!