Never as complicated or sophisticated as client makes out

[doodab]

This, but maybe thats why its all so disorganised. Companies get contractors, consultants, external firms, internal staff who have been on training courses and thisnk they know better and slowly, over time, the procedures become a mish-mash of everyone's input. The best places I have seen are those that still use the same procedures that they implemented from day one and are maintained by one person only or those who have junked the old procedures and started afresh.

I think most such things work better when you have a singular vision coming from strong leadership. Sadly in a lot of places that leadership is missing. Delegating is all well and good but the vision and leadership need to come from the top, not be handed off to underlings.

Personally I don't really have procedures and try to work around the ones in place which is why my work gets done and finished on time (or earlier.)

I have what I would call a "working method". I tend to do things my way (cos, as you observe, it works) and I look at supplying whatever I need to fit in to the existing structures as an additional task to be performed.

This usually means assessing the technical risks for myself and tackling the biggest ones upfront when most people's instinct seems to be to kick them down the road cos they are "hard". This often means I will go off at tangents based on my intuition, usually to the chagrin of some people who think I'm wasting time and should be getting on with something else, but 8 or 9 times out of 10 those tangents pay dividends later on.

[TheFaQQer]

That reminds me of a nightmare contract that was up for grabs in the early-nineties when work was scarce.

The client had apparently got through a few folks already because as soon as he caught them looking something up in a book they got their marching orders. This was in the days before internet or even decent built in help.

I didn't bother applying for that gig.

When I was looking for my first contract role, I was interviewed for something that I had the skills for, but not the in-depth experience of one niche part of the module. But I knew people who I could call on for advice, and the manuals etc.

The interviewer picked me up on that particular point, and the conversation was something like:

Me: if you want someone who knows the manual inside out, then that's not me; if you want someone who has a good track record of delivering across a range of modules including this one, then that's me

Interviewer: Yeah, we want someone who knows the manual inside out

Me: Well, that's not me, so I guess we should end the interview, really

Strangely enough, I didn't get that role

[eek]

When I was looking for my first contract role, I was interviewed for something that I had the skills for, but not the in-depth experience of one niche part of the module. But I knew people who I could call on for advice, and the manuals etc.

The interviewer picked me up on that particular point, and the conversation was something like:

Me: if you want someone who knows the manual inside out, then that's not me; if you want someone who has a good track record of delivering across a range of modules including this one, then that's me

Interviewer: Yeah, we want someone who knows the manual inside out

Me: Well, that's not me, so I guess we should end the interview, really

Strangely enough, I didn't get that role

As I consultant many years ago I was taught you only need to be 1/2 a page ahead of the client at any 1 point....

[darmstadt]

When I got my first ever job and qualifications were discussed I mentioned I had a couple of English O'levels which prompted the reply: "the best ones, at least you'll be able to RTFM and understand it!"