The Enormity Of It All

My Dear Princess and Dear Friends,

Another deeply professional day here at Kainga Ora. Here you see Corrie modelling the adorable hi-vis vest and hat we bought to publicise the installation of new hardware in offices later this year.

Later, Shenée asked me to email our application support team to request someone's time for our project. We have just entered the planning stages but she is already thinking about how we transition over to support when the project ends in about April next year*.

"It's a LOT to take on," she emphasised. "And we can't have them overwhelmed. We need them to appreciate the ENORMITY of what we are doing. Did you get that? ENORMITY. I like that word. You must use that word. Make sure you put that in. The ENORMITY of it all."

I wrote the email. But was concerned about that word. "Can I say 'scale'," I asked. "Enormity sounds a bit scary."

"Just use the f***ing word, snowflake," she replied.

She can be SO MEAN sometimes.

I used the word.

Nevertheless, I appreciated what she was trying to do. Once again, anticipating issues MONTHS ahead of time. I effing LOVE that  

Over lunch, Corrie, Shenée and I swapped stories about project work. And Shenée has difficulty comprehending the mere CONCEPT of a bad project.

She wrinkles her brow and frowns. "But why?" she  asks. "Why would you do things BADLY? It makes no sense."

Bless her. She is entirely serious.

So ask yourself, why DO project managers choose to do the dumb thing when doing the right thing is actually EASIER?

I am sure we have asked ourselves that question in many different forms over the years. "But WHY are we forging ahead on a path we already KNOW is doomed to fail? WHY are you forcing us to work weekends and evenings because we failed to meet dates we TOLD you were unrealistic? Why are we using software we TOLD you was unsuitable and expensive? Why? In God's name, WHYYYYY???"

Shenée just blinked at me, like a puzzled parrot. She cocked her head.

It is hard to explain. We are forging ahead on the doomed path because Tom promised Robert and can't lose face. We are working weekends because Gav wants to appear like he is taking charge when we all know he is a f***ing idiot. And we bought that piece of software because Richard plays golf with Gordon.

Shenée wrinkled her nose. "But WHY?" she asked.

Jesus. It's like explaining Nazis to a bunny rabbit.

I told her some stories. Of the time Tesco Bank asked me to test some software. "What does it do?" I asked.

They didn't know.

"Where are the requirements?" I asked.

"Oh Symon," someone laughed in a condescending way. "We don't have REQUIREMENTS. We're AGILE."

I asked them how they knew what to build. "We built it in ITERATIONS," they said. ""It's AGILE."

I asked them how I would know if it was working. They couldn't answer that.

I answered it myself though. It wasn't. Even without knowing what it did I managed to crash it several times. In the end the software was shelved. I don't know how much they spent on it.

I then told Shenée about the project I worked on for FIVE WHOLE YEARS. How it was always just three months away from implementing for the entirety of those five years. How the team was in a constant state of stress for five years. How we worked weekends and evenings for FIVE YEARS. 

How it was finally FORCED into production by a team who knew it didn't work. And how that same team continued to work on it for the next ten years. Not fixing errors - just scanning for them constantly so some poor business person could fix things manually.

Shenée was HORRIFIED.

"Do you see now?!?!" I asked, my voice raising by an octave or three. "Do you see WHY I was so cynical until you came along???"

"I think I understand now," she said. "Sweet Jesus. I had no idea."

"You think this is NORMAL??" I asked her, pointing around me at the carefully considered  plans, the timelines we agreed together as a team, the well-documented project aims and the happy staff. "This is NOT NORMAL."

I pointed my finger directly at her.

"YOU," I told her, "YOU ARE WEIRD."

Shenée looked at me. Her head on one side.

"I never realised the enormity of it before," she said. Her face was completely straight. 

I stared at her. It took a while for the penny to drop.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!" she said.

Like I say. She's just WEIRD.

And I bloody love that little weirdo.

S.

* Noooooooo!! I never want this project to end!!!!