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Posts Tagged ‘project management’

My Brain On Agile

Posted in Hi Tech, tagged , , , , , , , , on 04 Jun 2013| 6 Comments »

If you want to drive me completely bugfrak crazy, here’s what you do:

  1. Set me the task of fixing a system I know nothing about.
  2. Give me just enough time to analyze the system and get to the point where I juuuust barely understand it.
  3. Let me find the flaw in the system, and get an inkling of a solution.
  4. Take me off that task and set me on another.
  5. Repeat.

Do this enough times and I abso-effing-guarantee you I will go completely postal and do something rash. Like…I don’t know…make hum-bao from scratch. Or apply for a transfer to another group. (Trust me. In my case, that’s rash.)

I mean, seriously now, how hard is it to plan resources three weeks in advance?? (more…)

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Ready, Set, Fail

Posted in Hi Tech, tagged , , , , , , on 06 Sep 2012| Leave a Comment »

Obey the Kitty!I’ve spent some time on this blog bemoaning the flaws and poor implementations of Agile methodologies so, to be fair, this isn’t about that. I cannot blame Agile for the problems currently weighing on me at my Monkey-Boy-Day-Job. These problems go much deeper. It doesn’t matter what methodology you’re using; you can’t fix stupid.

Like most people, I want to succeed at my job. I want to do well and contribute to good outcomes. I really hate being set up to fail. But management-types don’t seem to grok that concept. So they do things like this:

  1. Create a situation wherein you need to do six months of work in six weeks.
  2. Ensure that the situation requires something you haven’t done before.
  3. Set people to work on it, but
    • Don’t give them details about what it is you want.
    • Pick people who don’t know the systems involved.
  4. Once underway, dribble in new and changed requirements.
  5. See what happens.

To quote Jayne Cobb, ” Where’s that get fun?”

k

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