test please delete

[NickFitz]

Home!

This morning's journey in was marred by a delay on the A14 due to a lorry with a burst front tyre. It was one of those heavily-built things with a crane on the back, which normally cause problems anyway because all the other lorries overtake them.

And then there was another broken-down lorry blocking the inside lane of the A14-A141 junction. Hours of fun

Anyway, coming back just involved a completely unexplained coming-to-a-halt for a minute or so on the Northants-Cambs border.

I'll be glad when it's this time tomorrow

[BR14]

Here's why I'm not a project manager...
Last week the business leads asked for a list of tasks and the order they should do them, along with a list of what I'd be working on.
I produced two lists. 18 lines in total - 10 for them, 8 for me, all nicely numbered.
One list had "Business" at the top, the other had "Systems"

After a one hour phone call with a PM, this is now a spreadsheet with 7 columns. These are:
1. Who is doing the work (it says Business or Systems),
2. What the work is (my original list)
3. What dependancies there are (should be by number, but no, he put a description and names against each one)
4. Who is supporting the work (always Systems)
5. More detail on what the work is (looks like column 2 but with extra words)
6. Notes (column 2, column 5, plus a bit extra)
7. Date (at one point this contained further notes, but is now a date. Not a due date, not an end date, mostly a start date)

Not only is it full of repetition, but you have to scroll across the screen to see things. Want to see what is due next week? Well, we can't sort by date because then we lose the order they are in, since we're not numbering them. So, look at the date, then scroll to the left a little to see the notes. Then I point out that I just want to see what the work is, because then I'll know what we're talking about.

/rant

Just be thankful it's not a powerpoint thing
and i find with PM's
if you can't blind them with science, baffle them with bullsh*t!

[mudskipper]

Will see if I can make it beyond 9pm today. :jetlag:

[vetran]

:sigh:

wednesday

:sigh:

Yep hump day (or date night if you are a yank).


next week off though!

[BR14]

Recording went well, - knackered now though, steak pie, chips and peas for dinner, purely for medicinal/recovery reasons of course

[vetran]

Here's why I'm not a project manager...
Last week the business leads asked for a list of tasks and the order they should do them, along with a list of what I'd be working on.
I produced two lists. 18 lines in total - 10 for them, 8 for me, all nicely numbered.
One list had "Business" at the top, the other had "Systems"

After a one hour phone call with a PM, this is now a spreadsheet with 7 columns. These are:
1. Who is doing the work (it says Business or Systems),
2. What the work is (my original list)
3. What dependancies there are (should be by number, but no, he put a description and names against each one)
4. Who is supporting the work (always Systems)
5. More detail on what the work is (looks like column 2 but with extra words)
6. Notes (column 2, column 5, plus a bit extra)
7. Date (at one point this contained further notes, but is now a date. Not a due date, not an end date, mostly a start date)

Not only is it full of repetition, but you have to scroll across the screen to see things. Want to see what is due next week? Well, we can't sort by date because then we lose the order they are in, since we're not numbering them. So, look at the date, then scroll to the left a little to see the notes. Then I point out that I just want to see what the work is, because then I'll know what we're talking about.

/rant

I feel your pain.

One of our systems gives us a view of what is currently happening not history, as there are about 500,000 new items in play each day and they can go through 10 - 20 different stages each, you can imagine looking at the open items once a day is not really going to cut it. I recommended that the system give us transaction logs we can read as & when.

I explain this with pictures & raw data which sort of explains why most of time the data in our system looks absolutely unlike their system.

my colleagues spent all day looking at it then concluded maybe we should read the view a couple of times a day.

[vetran]

Petrol station lunch day

Except I went to the new Morrison’s instead. Pros: cheaper petrol, and pay-at-pump. Cons: have to walk further to get my, as opposed to the car’s, lunch.

Next week I might try passing on the pay-at-pump and see what food there is in their petrol station shop. If need be, I’ll have to accept the extra 4p or so per litre and go back to BP/M&S.

Homemade Vegetable soup for lunch, its getting better with experience.

[BR14]

Homemade Vegetable soup for lunch, its getting better with experience.

Haven't tried that, - is it a herb or a sauce? - can you get it in tesco's or do you have to trek to M&S ?

[NickFitz]

Chicken and chips for tea - remains of the slow-cooked one from the other day, and very nice too

[mudskipper]

Will see if I can make it beyond 9pm today. :jetlag:

Got there. Calling it a day.