Reply to: Shock news IT Project delivered on time and on budget

[Cliphead]

An old ploy in the building trade would be to tell the tradesmen that if they did a 'bit of work' they could knock off early for the Friday, of course the job would be done in half the time. On the Monday morning they would be held to the time they did to do that 'bit of work' for the rest of the week. Estimates would be changed based on Friday's performance.

I did a stint as the site labourer (summer job), years ago on a large building project. No labouring involved just shouting at guys to get their hi-vis vests and hard hats on and touring the pubs on a Friday afternoon getting them back to the site.

[minestrone]

An old ploy in the building trade would be to tell the tradesmen that if they did a 'bit of work' they could knock off early for the Friday, of course the job would be done in half the time. On the Monday morning they would be held to the time they did to do that 'bit of work' for the rest of the week. Estimates would be changed based on Friday's performance.

[suityou01]

It's easy to get even difficult projects in on time and budget, just add 50-100% extra to the time and budget while using your charm to sell the extra cost as "essential". Then when it comes in quick and cheap you're a hero who can add an extra £100 a day to your rate for all the follow-on work coming in.

Also known as the "Scotty principle". If the Enterprise broke down, Scotty would tell Captain Kirk it would take 8 hours to fix, Kirk would tell him he needed it in 4, Scotty would deliver in 3 and be looked on in awe for delivering heroically once again and saving the day. Not once did Kirk call him out for being a bluffing time-padder who spent all the extra time stuffing his face with pies.

In reality, if you're not routinely adding 20% to time and budget you're going to be let down by someone who couldn't care less and your reputation will suffer.

You too could be a bluffing time-padder stuffing your face with pies while being looked on in awe by those unworthy souls who struggle to do things to best-case time & cost.

I love this. Good post. Made I larf...

[craig1]

It's easy to get even difficult projects in on time and budget, just add 50-100% extra to the time and budget while using your charm to sell the extra cost as "essential". Then when it comes in quick and cheap you're a hero who can add an extra £100 a day to your rate for all the follow-on work coming in.

Also known as the "Scotty principle". If the Enterprise broke down, Scotty would tell Captain Kirk it would take 8 hours to fix, Kirk would tell him he needed it in 4, Scotty would deliver in 3 and be looked on in awe for delivering heroically once again and saving the day. Not once did Kirk call him out for being a bluffing time-padder who spent all the extra time stuffing his face with pies.

In reality, if you're not routinely adding 20% to time and budget you're going to be let down by someone who couldn't care less and your reputation will suffer.

You too could be a bluffing time-padder stuffing your face with pies while being looked on in awe by those unworthy souls who struggle to do things to best-case time & cost.

[suityou01]

Well done. I assume it successfully says "Hello world".

Yep, and this is printed through a bubblesort routine so ner ner ne ner ner.

[VectraMan]

Well done. I assume it successfully says "Hello world".

Project breakdown: 1 month doing business analysis. Another month writing a spec. Another month coming up with a design. 2 minutes typing:

10 PRINT "Hello World"
20 GOTO 10

Then 1 month of designing and coding unit tests. Another month designing and developing system integration tests. Then finally a month writing documents and doing handover.

Another successful 6 month IT project delivered on time and budget.

[Doggy Styles]

Well done. I assume it successfully says "Hello world".

[suityou01]

Dont want to p1ss on your chips but what's hard about getting a project over the line on time is working with other people. Dealing with agenda's, lack of information flow, incompetency, artificial deadlines, complexity of existing systems.

If you are in control of the whole lot and starting from scratch it's a lot easier. Like doing a school project.

If you can do the whole lot yourself it is a reasonably trivial project. A project of any size and complexity will require a few people to get it done in 6 months.

That said, it is satisfying to get another one under your belt. Merry Xmas.

Congrats on 2010's most predictable post. Of course it's easier in a team of 1.

But there were others involved. The customer needed to be interviewed for requirements, then beaten up until they signed off. Then the customer needed to be beaten up to give me test data from their ERP system.

Then the system I was interfacing to gave me problems and the technical support guys are still scratching their heads as to what is wrong, meanwhile I coded a very elegant and simple workaround.

The test plans had to be prepared and given to the UAT team.

So not all plain sailing, and again not too hard. The principles and meticulous testing meant I got a lot of job satisfaction in the end.

And a Merry Christmas to you.

[aussielong]

Me me me me me look at me

As part of my ongoing networking and general touting for work I took on a development project recently. I did the business analysis, wrote the spec, did the design, estimates, coding (not that rusty ), unit testing, integration testing, system integration testing and handed it over for UAT today.

It passed first time. NewClientCo was literally gobsmacked. I have plenty more work coming my way from this new contact

All those years of working on projects that are delivered late, over budget, sitting their knowing that the project manager is incompetent, the developers are cowboys and no one really cares, to this.

Now I'll wager that most CUKers will not be that impressed with this, as you are all consumate professionals who do this day in day out for your clients, but it is most gratifying to deliver a quality service and I for one am chuffed to bits.

That is all.

Dont want to p1ss on your chips but what's hard about getting a project over the line on time is working with other people. Dealing with agenda's, lack of information flow, incompetency, artificial deadlines, complexity of existing systems.

If you are in control of the whole lot and starting from scratch it's a lot easier. Like doing a school project.

If you can do the whole lot yourself it is a reasonably trivial project. A project of any size and complexity will require a few people to get it done in 6 months.

That said, it is satisfying to get another one under your belt. Merry Xmas.

[MarillionFan]

The Old Bull and young bull story springs to mind

[Freamon]

The problem with doing things too fast is that it doesn't give the client much time to change their mind about the requirements, which means there's no money to be made on change requests.

[minestrone]

Now I'll wager that most CUKers will not be that impressed with this, as you are all consumate professionals who do this day in day out for your clients, but it is most gratifying to deliver a quality service and I for one am chuffed to bits.

That is all.

It is actually a great feeling to be in charge of a big project and get it in on time. All credit.

In 2003 I ran my first team and got a massive project in on time, it felt like I had taken a handfull of ephedrine when the server switched on. So I go into the manging director's room...

"That is it live now, seems to be no problems, server is holding up, no problems with the code, looking good" *expects a thanks*

"OK, I will take a look at the site in a minute"

I must say I was slightly happy he lost his house last year.

[Zippy]

Me me me me me look at me

As part of my ongoing networking and general touting for work I took on a development project recently. I did the business analysis, wrote the spec, did the design, estimates, coding (not that rusty ), unit testing, integration testing, system integration testing and handed it over for UAT today.

It passed first time. NewClientCo was literally gobsmacked. I have plenty more work coming my way from this new contact

All those years of working on projects that are delivered late, over budget, sitting their knowing that the project manager is incompetent, the developers are cowboys and no one really cares, to this.

Now I'll wager that most CUKers will not be that impressed with this, as you are all consumate professionals who do this day in day out for your clients, but it is most gratifying to deliver a quality service and I for one am chuffed to bits.

That is all.

SY01 you are such a card!

[d000hg]

Imagine how early you could have delivered the project if you'd just got on with the actual work?

Actually, I would posit that SY's habit of spending his billing time on CUK is directly responsible for the project success. It kept him away from the project so people could get it done without his ham-fisted attempts to 'help'.

[d000hg]

Well done, you delivered a $40 PHP project you won on RentaCoder.