Inability to stop questioning tulip design and standards

[bobspud]

OK - Part Q / Part Rant

For those longer in the tooth than me....how do you stop looking at what's in place and basically telling thier design, policies and standards are tulip?

Even as a consultant I'd get too personal with the design, spending lots of time and energy on trying not just to give a solution that worked but was good (not OTT but fit for purpose i.e. not just a hack).

Now I'm in a large organisation but within a small satellite entity that's been largely left untouched by the big brother. As such they have adopted som of their own best practices and standards that are archaic and derrive from at time when storage was expensive or database locks and poor query performance were common.

Now I can sit there and just add to the tulip that's already there or try to make a difference. the business side know's that it's best not to ruffle feathers, do as they do and keep billing. But the professional in me weeps when I see it.

Anyway, meeting tomorrow to present a new sleeker governance model to get away from the fortnightly talk-shop model currently in place.

This is a dangerous place to be...

You are a fleeting fart in the space time continuum. They (your customer) have been stoopid for many years before you arrived and will continue the tradition long after you have left.

What you do is place a design on their table that contradicts every piece of knowledge that you have learned to become the consultant you are today, and instead embrases every single design strategy that they have set before you from their standards...

You do this with pride and fervor for two reasons :

1) They are paying you for your ability to write the document to their standards.
2) You cannot be sued/sacked/denounced for giving the customer exactly what they asked you for.

If your better idea turns the rest of their substandard system to pulp they wont say "Wow his great idea really showed up how tulipe our old systems are!"

[KimberleyChris]

Well, the OP did ask for the opinion of us 'elders'.

Just as long as he doesn't get the impression that we are a bunch of hard-bitten cynical old hourly-rate whores, who are quite happy to keep digging the customer's hole as deep as they want it, just as long as we get paid for doing it....

We wouldn't want to disillusion him, would we?

[realityhack]

By all means remain cynical, and carry on playing the same game that's been played for the last 20 years in Megacorp Project Land... it's keeping me in business!

[eek]

By all means remain cynical, and carry on playing the same game that's been played for the last 20 years in Megacorp Project Land... it's keeping me in business!

I have a simple set of rules

1) carry on the way the client wants.
2) learn from their mistakes and
3) laugh at it down the pub.

[Freamon]

When I was taking over this project from the previous guy, who had given notice, as I looked at it I said to him, I think I have just stepped back 20 years in IT.

Later I said, maybe 30 years.

Now I think I may have been a shade conservative. And I understand why he gave notice. And why my contract doesn't have the notice option that his did.

Are you a BPM Architect?

[TheFaQQer]

OK - Part Q / Part Rant....

Make suggestions, based on your experience - that is partly what they are paying for.

If they ignore your expert advice, then you either walk or suck it up - they are the customer.

I recently told the PM "I think that is a really, really bad idea, but you're the customer so if that's the approach, then that's what I'll go with". When he said that they were going to ignore my advice and go that way, I just told him that I'd need it documenting in the specification documents that this was what they wanted to do.

Not happy with it, but this is what they want to do - and when it goes wrong, I'll remove their hack and do it properly for more money

[d000hg]

Now I can sit there and just add to the tulip that's already there or try to make a difference. the business side know's that it's best not to ruffle feathers, do as they do and keep billing. But the professional in me weeps when I see it.

It depends if the current solution is just a bit wonky, or actually doesn't work. Developers and technical people ALWAYS want to replace systems and most of the time the fact things are a bit kludgy doesn't actually matter.

[DieScum]

Depressingly I've come to the stage in my working career where I realise that you just have to fall in line, shut up and cash the cheque.

If you ever catch yourself getting on a high horse get down immediately. It's cost me money and aggravation too many times.

Now I'll raise the issue and leave it at that. I don't get in to technical fights. I just bend over and take it while thinking of the money.

I hate it and it kills a little piece of my soul each and every day.

[suityou01]

OK - Part Q / Part Rant

For those longer in the tooth than me....how do you stop looking at what's in place and basically telling thier design, policies and standards are tulip?

Even as a consultant I'd get too personal with the design, spending lots of time and energy on trying not just to give a solution that worked but was good (not OTT but fit for purpose i.e. not just a hack).

Now I'm in a large organisation but within a small satellite entity that's been largely left untouched by the big brother. As such they have adopted som of their own best practices and standards that are archaic and derrive from at time when storage was expensive or database locks and poor query performance were common.

Now I can sit there and just add to the tulip that's already there or try to make a difference. the business side know's that it's best not to ruffle feathers, do as they do and keep billing. But the professional in me weeps when I see it.

Anyway, meeting tomorrow to present a new sleeker governance model to get away from the fortnightly talk-shop model currently in place.

Your moral high ground may be misplaced. I certainly wouldn't take design and standards criticism from someone who cannot spell.

[MarillionFan]

Your moral high ground may be misplaced. I certainly wouldn't take design and standards criticism from someone who cannot spell.

Line 4 for Mr Suity. It's a fella from Tefal.