Reply to: Troubleshooting...a mug's game?

[NotAllThere]

Dominic: your grasp of history and theology shows that journalism really is the best career for you.

For anyone who's on a project or considering one like the op's, I recommend Yourdon's Death March.. It's got me through many dire projects.

[BrilloPad]

There are far too many knobs around too.

That is good news. Plenty of gigs around for quality guys like yourself...

[Scrag Meister]

To me, that is all some competent BAs should do.

There are far too many knobs around too.

[aussielong]

I found I couldn't lose. This was their last throw of the dice before they canned the project and expectations were low.

They think I'm a genius now, and the truth is I just made it my business to get my hands dirty and understand what needed doing and then do it.

I had never had any involvement with a data migration before but it didn't take me long to work out:

- we need to know what is being migrated and to where.
- you've forgotten to migrate allergies.
- that is probably a bad thing.
- you now need to demonstrate that you are migrating everything you said you would.
- you need to do some practice runs because you're chaotic.
- you need to do more practice runs with a proper report.
- you need to carry on until you get it right.
- it may not be the best idea to do the data migration over the weekend on a single laptop locked in an empty hospital office, even if that is how you always do it.

So much of it just needs some common sense and the ability to ask some pertinent questions.

To me, that is all a BA does.

[cojak]

I've had one or 2 (or 3) like this.

When it's chaos all around I fall back onto best practice and the little mantra I've pinched from somewhere of 'Plan, Do, Check, Act'.

• The plan is about creating a To-Do list and writing a quick and dirty Project Approach document.
• The Do is doing what you've planned (but often ends up doing something different, but that's ok because you perform Case Management and log stuff).
• The Check is to make sure that you're doing what the client wants as well as checking whether what you've done is good enough (aiming for perfection is a surefire way to fail and generally not necessary unless you're in the aircraft or nuclear industry).
• Acting is to make any tweaks to make sure you're still on track.

In all of those projects I've been seen as the beacon of (relative) calm and focus - everyone else was running around like a headless chicken, changing things the moment some senior manager shouted at them (they shouted at me too, but I had my log to take them through stuff and explain why I was doing it this way).

I loved those type of projects - easy money and extensions were always offered.

[GB9]

DC - interesting reading. I haven't a clue what you were banging on about but enjoyed it all the same!

When I went to dodgy supermarket it was to resolve issues with a project that had been running 6 months. I got presented with a 'project plan' consisting of approx. 56 rows on an Excel spreadsheet. The previous PM had taken 6 months to produce this. Hence, apply all usual approach, logic etc. Everything neatly in place, except.....the fundamental problem was BobCo who had become embedded in the organisation and had delivered jot all. And continued to deliver jot all. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Or you can put some Bobs in front of a PC but you can't make them code if it isn't in their interest to do so.

So, 7 months down the line, I have had enough. New incumbent now been there 6 months and delivered sod all too.

Moral of the story, patient heal thyself...or get rid of BobCo.

[Dominic Connor]

It can work, timing is key

The last full time contract I ever did was an omGoditsbad. Ended up me being the head of IT there as a permie. Amongst the "issues" were that the database subproject wasn't as far along as it should be, or as found out, hadn't even been started.

The first thing to know is that you're not troubleshooting, but laying traps for the trouble to fall into and die.

In other words, you don't have Silver Bullets in a golden gun, you can rarely kill the problems quickly, but instead start the process of their demise.

However much they assure you that they don't expect quick miracles, be clear they will want to see progress at an unrealistic rate.

As the famous contractor Jesus of Nazareth found, the miracles that people remember are the party tricks that don't achieve much, but look good. The exquisite physics that interact with a global biological system to deliver such a stable environment that people think it was actually designed for them personally are far less impressive than turning water into London Pride (the King James Bible is an inaccurate translation), do this and people think you're the son of God.

Recall how when the miracles became less frequent and he got involved in the politics of the client, he got terminated with extreme prejudice. Most importantly, he didn't get paid.

Thus project management in a clusterfook are rather different to the classical PERT or whatever. You need to optimise with respect to things that people can see, heal the odd leper or management report and you will keep them sweet.

You also need sticks and carrots. To get your team to follow you, they need to know of the Hell you can unleash on them, the Christian mythos did not include Hell until tool late, hence Jesus lost critical team members who were offered more money.

Jesus also made the mistake of offering vague rewards for performance, indeed the reason Jesus was crucified and Mohammed died in his bed was that there were no clear performance targets, "love thy neighbour as thyself" is about as useful as Gus Grissom's "do good work" when asked to motivate Apollo construction workers.

"Eat fish this Friday" may be pointless and in those times chicken was counted as a type of fish, but its clear and deliverable.

That's key for rallying people to your cause, give them the opportunity to succeed, which will make them more productive and you look good. Stoning a witch (ie any ugly woman that comes to hand) is just as good.

One thing Jesus got right was that he did stuff himself personally, as did Mohammed and Bill Gates. Although most work was done by others, they cut code, walked on water, won battles or whatever whilst being seen, leadership cannot be outsourced.

Jesus had the problem that he was the Son of God, not the main man at all and God had smitten people for having sex without a licence and demanding the death penalty for wearing a shirt made of two cloths or eating a bacon sarnie.

God wanted someone to undo the mess he'd caused by choosing a tiny little group as the chosen people when in retrospect the Romans or Chinese would have been a better bet. He'd under resourced big time, you're going to have to do this.

On day Zero you need to seize control of the objectives and targets of the project. Kill some of these. Recall how Jesus went on and on about his bloody mother, but the poor sap Joseph vanished without a trace, so much for "honour thy father and mother", he picked the target he could deliver. Ideally you should kill some deliverables that aren't too important, but given you're new you don't know which they are so the important term is "shoot" and define whatever you hit as the target.

The assignment of blame is both critical and cynical. For 2,000 years Christians have been getting away with saying that Jews killed Jesus, when even their own records show hm being killed by Romans in a traditional Roman way, by Roman Legionnaires acting under the orders of Roman governor. This has been the excuse for killing millions of Jews, and the lesson here is that you should say over and over again that assigning blame is not your job, you are here to deliver, but at the same time implicitly blaming people who don't follow you, ideally they should actually to be genuinely responsible for a problem, but that is a luxury you can rarely afford.
The secret to success is low expectations, an error that was critical to the failure of Jesus project to save humanity. He started off giving good advice, telling happy stories and getting people drunk, when he went off on the divine gig, people started expecting too much of him, like defeating the entire Roman Empire at the peak of its strength.

Steve Jobs came back to save Apple, after John Sculley had saved Apple from him, neither tried to fix the federal deficit or climate change, indeed one of Steve Jobs first decisions was to stop all acts of charity by Apple, knowing that the media would love him even if he raped more kids than the Catholic church.

By zapping parts of the project, you will piss off some people, if you don't then you haven't cut enough.

If they have enough political clout to get their bit of the system out back on the project, then they have enough clout to get you more resources and one of the resources is a bonus budget and for you to promote people or pay them more.

You need to catch people doing good stuff and amplify this behaviour, a reason for Christianity's popularity is that you can do really bad stuff, but if you repent then you are OK. They've made trillions of quid and got laid this way, they know what they're doing here. The lesson is that the people who screwed up delivery of the project are most probably the people who can fix their own mess, you need to be able to get them doing the right thing again.

You also need to align your visible objectives with that of the firm.

Once you have defined what your project will do, put a proposal of the form, " I will take 25% less pay, if I get 75% extra as a bonus when I deliver."

Also constantly make sure your CV is up to date and attend occasional interviews, because the mob may rise up at any time.

[malvolio]

Did you invoice them for your notice period, though?

The contract stopped at the end of the week when the contract decision was made, so no notice needed. The transition, if it happened, was effectively a renewal.

I don't do notice periods anyway.

[CoolCat]

Most of the stuff I have taken on in the second half of my working life has been troubleshooting of one kind or another.

[TheFaQQer]

Took it on. Won the contract renewal. Was terminated within the week. Never heard from them again. Heigh ho...

Did you invoice them for your notice period, though?

[malvolio]

"So here's the deal. We're a major system integrator, running the service desk and desktop support operation for a major HMG department, a contract worth £17.5m over five years. We're about to lose it , mainly for poor performance. The current manager is leaving but has worked with you before and thinks you are pretty good. We need you either to win the contract - which frankly we are certain is a lost cause - or oversee the transition to whoever does win it. If by some miracle you do win it, we'll replace you with a permie immediately. And you have three months at the most. Fancy it?"

Took it on. Won the contract renewal. Was terminated within the week. Never heard from them again. Heigh ho...

[quackhandle]

Most projects I have worked on have been a cluster f**k from beginning to end, but hey that's why we get hired!

The NHS was what I expected, loads of mess, internal politics and a general bad feeling, but I fixed a number of things, documented them, then got another gig.

Client I am at now (a very well known online co) am totally shocked at the amateurishness of how they have done things, truly jaw-dropping.

qh

[Old Greg]

It's a pretty common thing and I would say part and parcel of contracting. Certainly sorts the men from the boys and if you can pull it off and demonstrate this to future clients it could be a real earner for you.

Everyone can PM a project (ok a generalisation) but not many can roll their sleeves up and save one, or take the stick in one that is never going to succeed.

I have had a couple of gigs like this. One in particular ended up being an utter nightmare and there was no chance of pulling bit back so was just used as a scapegoat for the entire 8 month gig. Very uncomfortable time but as long as you can let it go at night it is just another gig. Endless angry exchanges with stakeholders and team. Oddly enough my main protagonist took me for a drink on the last day and couldn't praise me enough for putting up with it and doing a bloody good job. A year later he calls me out of the blue from a new company he is working for and offers a nice little cushy 6 monther to which I could dictate my terms.

If the project is so bad they can't get permies to fill the post who else are they going to turn to?

I found I couldn't lose. This was their last throw of the dice before they canned the project and expectations were low.

They think I'm a genius now, and the truth is I just made it my business to get my hands dirty and understand what needed doing and then do it.

I had never had any involvement with a data migration before but it didn't take me long to work out:

- we need to know what is being migrated and to where.
- you've forgotten to migrate allergies.
- that is probably a bad thing.
- you now need to demonstrate that you are migrating everything you said you would.
- you need to do some practice runs because you're chaotic.
- you need to do more practice runs with a proper report.
- you need to carry on until you get it right.
- it may not be the best idea to do the data migration over the weekend on a single laptop locked in an empty hospital office, even if that is how you always do it.

So much of it just needs some common sense and the ability to ask some pertinent questions.

[NCOTBAC]

It's a pretty common thing and I would say part and parcel of contracting. Certainly sorts the men from the boys and if you can pull it off and demonstrate this to future clients it could be a real earner for you.

Everyone can PM a project (ok a generalisation) but not many can roll their sleeves up and save one, or take the stick in one that is never going to succeed.

I have had a couple of gigs like this. One in particular ended up being an utter nightmare and there was no chance of pulling bit back so was just used as a scapegoat for the entire 8 month gig. Very uncomfortable time but as long as you can let it go at night it is just another gig. Endless angry exchanges with stakeholders and team. Oddly enough my main protagonist took me for a drink on the last day and couldn't praise me enough for putting up with it and doing a bloody good job. A year later he calls me out of the blue from a new company he is working for and offers a nice little cushy 6 monther to which I could dictate my terms.

If the project is so bad they can't get permies to fill the post who else are they going to turn to?

[TheFaQQer]

One gig I did, at the interview I was told "we went live a month ago, and there are massive issues. We inadvertently over-invoiced to the tune of about 35 million Euros on one invoice, and they have a direct debit with us. There are about 30 other issues, you've got four weeks - there won't be an extension, there won't be any more work, but can you come in and fix the issues and then leave?" Brilliant work.

Another interview began "OK, I'll tell you everything wrong with our system, and then you can let me know whether you'd be interested in coming in and fixing the f***ing thing for us?" Only questions in the interview were "when can you start?" and "have you got any holiday booked?" That one lasted 16 months.