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Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2002-04-09 - 9:21 p.m. Winding up a Misfit Toy Apparently, I work with Burl Ives. Remember the children's Christmas specials? Frosty the Snowman Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Yes, I know he's deceased, but I'm telling you I've found his missing link. Burl Ives is the lead engineer my troubled project. Except he doesn't believe in leading. Meetings continue to be a frustrating as people try to stake territory, avoid blame and pretend to be making progress. Last week, we went through an engineering trade on the instrument I'm overseeing. There were (le sigh) a couple problems, foremost being no one understands how it's supposed to work. Think of this like a car. One person is building the speedometer. But it won't work unless the person building the wiring hooks up the gauge to the sensor attached to the wheels. And then someone has to handle the software that makes the fancy digital display, well, display. If you follow this analogy, no one seems to understand who's writing the display software and who's hooking up the wires. My colleagues, who've been on this project two years to my five weeks, had an explosive argument at and around me concerning who had agreed to do what. You see, no one wrote down the plan. If you want everyone to agree to a plan you have to (a) write it down (b) let everyone read it (c) have a thick skin while they criticize it and you think silently 'easy for you to say since you were too lazy to write it down' (d) modify the plan (e) return to step (b) and repeat until everyone is content to sign it. Not this project. It's like a game of gossip gone bad. I told so-and-so two years ago this was my assumption. Well, they never told me! Well, I posted the file where I wrote it down on the website There are 5000+ documents on the website, completely unindexed. No one has any clue what the people who are actually building the thing know/think. But, Burl speaks from the back of the room and explains what he intended. No, he never wrote it down. No, his vision was never reviewed, much less explained to the hundred other people involved. And, the worst part is the entire time he's talking patronizingly, Have a holly, jolly Christmas is playing in the back of my head. I told my boss this and he stared at me. Then, just to be supportive, he hummed a selection from Island of the Misfit Toys. I glare at him. I don't think they have a sense of humor. Today I had an argument with him about how we should write down the plan. The entire twenty minutes the words to Silver and Gold are echoing through my mind He doesn't think it's necessary until we hire someone to build the display and renegotiate how the entire speedometer system will work. Unfortunately, the people building the speedometer will be starting months before that. No, he doesn't see the logical flaw. Wonder if he understands the word syllogism? Maybe an illustrative example would help his understanding. Burl Ives went to the Island of the Misfit Toys. <=> My leader looks like Burl Ives. <=> Therefore, he is a Misfit Toy. � � � 
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