Reply to: Poisoned chalice project

[speling bee]

This very morning I have made the offer to do the proverbial walk to the potting shed with a bottle of scotch and my old service revolver, over one of the two projects I am kicking off. Nice thing about contracting is that I can just walk away. It has failure and misery watermarked into the documentation and life is too short. Interestingly my client, a very nice and competent chap, tolerates a contractor 50% of whose colleagues refuse to work with her. One client has also requested her off the project for personal reasons. Most odd.

[suityou01]

Break him. Ahem. I mean in gently.


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[MarillionFan]

Phase 3 and 4 final phases go live May 12th. The last two phases worked will 3 and 4. I have resigned my position and when this fecker is over I move into a new role. 18 months of sheer hassle.

Phases 3 and 4 failed to go live in May. Phase 4 went live 80% in June. A whole heap of fallout but due to my canny decision to resign half my role earlier I avoided the fallout.

During testing they decided that the '4 more weeks worth of dev' was actually another 9 months. How a dev team can it so wrong and still noone fired is amazing.

Then having handed over half my team & responsibilities a tulip storm kicked off over the massive corporate data warehouse I had built outside of IT & for the sakes of peace and goodwill I handed it over to the new BI Director in IT with head count.

Then finally last week once the handovers were complete my boss got removed and I got a new one, green and from outside the company. 'What do you do?' was the first question. 'Ah well......' said I

Trying to hang on until August bonus.

[suityou01]

You want PermieUK.

HTH.

[Bunk]

I have resigned my position

Again?

[MarillionFan]

The fooker went live. An entire team of people worldwide to deal with the fall out of this major change if we'd got something wrong.

My team flown to the corners of the world.

Deployment was two hours quicker than expected.

Tested until late Saturday morning, picked up no bloody problems.

Monday morning, worldwide training took place, (not run by me as we have a 'communications' expert). Numerous questions, I was on the panel & answered them all. Tuesday, a few minor issues but no showstoppers. In fact, the whole thing went so smoothly my entire team & the development team are left scratching our heads, while a number of 'other' people jumped on the bandwagon at the last second to take the glory as they'd done the comms & training. Because there were no problems / nothing to recover from it's like a damp squib. It's like Y2K all over again.

I've never felt so fookin deflated in my life.

Phase 3 and 4 final phases go live May 12th. The last two phases worked will 3 and 4. I have resigned my position and when this fecker is over I move into a new role. 18 months of sheer hassle.

[mudskipper]

Sounds like a success

But yep, know what you mean, if it all looks too easy no-one appreciates how damned hard it was!

[suityou01]

I'm going to have a couple of beers and then pick on a small dutchman in a pub.

Standard.

[MarillionFan]

You did well. Tikabooson.

I'm going to have a couple of beers and then pick on a small dutchman in a pub.

[suityou01]

You did well. Tikabooson.

[MarillionFan]

Actually do as MF says. In less than 3 weeks I look to successfully deliver the most fookin poisonous chalice project of my entire career to over 1000 users. 11 trips to the US, over 130 days in tulip hotels, stupidly long days (again 18 hours today) , more politics than a US debt default and more CYA than a Miley Cyrus video on Iranian TV. If this doesn't fook up in the last 21 days at the last hurdle then I have just pulled off the pinnacle of my entire IT career. Otherwise feel free to give me a good CUK kicking. (Or do if I pull it off as well :-) )

The fooker went live. An entire team of people worldwide to deal with the fall out of this major change if we'd got something wrong.

My team flown to the corners of the world.

Deployment was two hours quicker than expected.

Tested until late Saturday morning, picked up no bloody problems.

Monday morning, worldwide training took place, (not run by me as we have a 'communications' expert). Numerous questions, I was on the panel & answered them all. Tuesday, a few minor issues but no showstoppers. In fact, the whole thing went so smoothly my entire team & the development team are left scratching our heads, while a number of 'other' people jumped on the bandwagon at the last second to take the glory as they'd done the comms & training. Because there were no problems / nothing to recover from it's like a damp squib. It's like Y2K all over again.

I've never felt so fookin deflated in my life.

[No2politics]

"I'm a genius, not a miracle worker"

From Escape to Victory, a vastly underrated film.

Great film!

[doodab]

I have used b before. Another personal favourite.

"What you are asking for is a miracle. And miracles cost money"

"I'm a genius, not a miracle worker"

From Escape to Victory, a vastly underrated film.

[No2politics]

a) I always try to have a face to face with the stakeholders, find out what they want from the project.
Ask them to attend the meeting as we want to discuss what might need to be dropped from the project if it can't all be completed.

b) See a.
Always tell them there are 3 main things in projects, Quality, Cheep and Speed. Pick two.

I have used b before. Another personal favourite.

"What you are asking for is a miracle. And miracles cost money"

[doodab]

According to The Guardian, that happened last year.

Lacking long-term shared goals, many are turning to what she terms "Pot Noodle love"

If only she knew...