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Story: “It would be career limiting..."

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Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#151

Post by quadcore »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #120
tdeck wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you simply tell them they're not doing their job, or would you ask questions, talk in private, and try to dig in tactfully? Telling a manager "we uncovered work that wasn't in the original spec" isn't literally the same thing as telling them they aren't doing their job.

I think the confusion is, if their job is to execute a $60M contract successfully, and you tell them that it’s going to require an extra 12 months, you’re almost literally telling them they aren’t doing their job. Because arguably they weren’t. Their job was to guide the project successfully, which they didn’t do. In a situation like that, you can recover, but it requires tact. The end of this story was that they lef…

In a situation like that, you can recover, but it requires tact.

I'd bet it doesnt requires tact to convince them anymore.

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#152

Post by peteradio »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #142
svnt wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of what you said is true, but your analog is a little off. It wasn’t a junior and a senior in the same role, it was a technical team deputized to do what they did, and a management group that apparently thought the deputies would fail, or convinced themselves their conclusions were wrong. The failure here is not one of lack of politics or communication on the part of the author or their team, but on the culture…

For what it’s worth, I don’t think they could have done more. But the conclusion of the story is to heroically drive off a cliff, and say “it’s all I could do.” That’s where I disagree. If it were me, I would have privately (emphasis on private) worked my way up the chain of command, trying to alert more and more people that there was a serious problem brewing. The meeting in the story was obviously going to be a fai…

I don't understand how the deputized team drove off the cliff. At the very least they surfaced the set of problems which would need to be addressed to meet the contract.

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#153

Post by d23 »

duped wrote: post #47

I mean this story is cathartic, but I don't get what the "rabble rousers" expected to happen. You don't go into a meeting like that to present problems, but to present solutions. And a 12 month delay on a $60 million contract isn't a solution, it's another problem for the sales/client success people. And doing it in front of a group of management, no less - that's like firing a shot across the bow, declaring that the…

It's their fucking job to solve the problem, and it's professional malpractice to hear the news, acknowledge it's true, and then sweep it under the rug.

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#154

Post by maxbond »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #92
abeppu wrote: post #6

> we hadn’t even received all of the specifications from the customer that we would need to complete the project > And then one of them said “It would be career limiting if the client were to hear this.” > I’d met my responsibility to the company – and the company had threatened me as a result. The author interprets that they were threatened. But really, for whom would it be career limiting? Perhaps I'm being too cha…

Granted, “it would be career limiting” is an ambiguous statement. We can reasonably assume that the story as written omits various context clues, additional communications, body language, and other ensuing events that gave the author a more complete understanding of what the manager meant when they said that.

I've been threatened a number of times in my life. The only people who have threatened me directly and without any fig leaves, weren't serious about it; a man on the street once said he'd kill me, and being an dumb 18 year old, I just laughed at him. He didn't do a thing, and I don't think he ever intended to. He just wanted to scare me. (I'm not bragging, this was foolish and cavalier, and I wouldn't respond that way today.)

The people who actually intended to make good on it, they were always circumspect and left room for reasonable doubt. Largely, I expect, to make the process easier on themselves; to create sufficient dissonance that they could think of it as giving advice. But of course the advice was, "if you do X, it will be bad for you, because I will respond with Y."

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#155

Post by mcv »

dimitar wrote: post #110
duped wrote: post #47

I mean this story is cathartic, but I don't get what the "rabble rousers" expected to happen. You don't go into a meeting like that to present problems, but to present solutions. And a 12 month delay on a $60 million contract isn't a solution, it's another problem for the sales/client success people. And doing it in front of a group of management, no less - that's like firing a shot across the bow, declaring that the…

So what other possible solution there is? Cut scope? Hire 200 more people?

Keep the client informed of the progress. Springing a surprise like this on the client on the originally planned delivery date, without any warnings well in advance, should count as proof of poor project management and make the software company liable for a significant chunk of the costs. The client shouldn't have to swallow that cost if they were kept in the dark.

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#156

Post by PaulHoule »

I remember going to a training on project management where they told story about a project manager at a major research university who was told to estimate what it would cost to implement Peoplesoft and was let go when he told the truth about what it would cost.

They brought in a "Yes Man" who came in with the lowball estimate that management wanted and figured they could bring the cost down further by stealing people's time from other people's projects.

The project broke the $100M budget that was floated by the initial project manager and they only completed 1 out of 5 modules. Of course other IT projects across that university were screwed up and damage was done to the careers of many innocent people.

The good news is that based on that screw-up and several others around the same time that Uni greatly improved its management practices.

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#157

Post by nunez »

duped wrote: post #47

I mean this story is cathartic, but I don't get what the "rabble rousers" expected to happen. You don't go into a meeting like that to present problems, but to present solutions. And a 12 month delay on a $60 million contract isn't a solution, it's another problem for the sales/client success people. And doing it in front of a group of management, no less - that's like firing a shot across the bow, declaring that the…

precisely correct.

if consultants were asked to do this, the solution might have looked something like "there are nine months worth of opportunities to optimally architect the project; these are the top ten problems we identified and the top three preventing us from shipping; here are the tradeoffs; which would you like us to work on?"

this could've been a resume generating event for a lot of people

that said, burn out and feeling unheard definitely sucks. that probably played a part in how the OP landed here

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#158

Post by jalla »

duped wrote: post #51
maxbond wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a manager, and you make this type of remark, do not get it twisted. You have made a threat, and you have created an adversarial situation that limits your report's ability to trust you. You've telegraphed to them that you're willing to throw them under the bus, and they will remember. If it doesn't feel like you're making a threat - it may feel to you like you're genuinely giving advice - then you have not…

What do you think an IC is doing when they walk into a room full of managers and declare the project they're managing is horribly mismanaged?

I've been naive like that a few times. I managed to get away unharmed most times but once I was publicly blamed for the project's failure by the incompetent managers, in a governmental organisation. I overestimated people's honesty in the face of their own career death. I considered blowing the whistle or taking them to court for slander but I had strong doubts I could clear my name as power corrupts.

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#159

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

johnfn wrote: post #106
donatj wrote: post #40

> I spent about 18 months working on a doomed project. For a lot of that time, I thought I was the only one who realized it was doomed. I had a similar feeling about a project once. I thought "Boy is this stupid. No one in their right mind is going to pay for this. Why are we building this." Let me manager know my feelings. Stayed and built it. Thing is a huge success. One of our best selling products. Boy do I still…

Conversely, one time I worked for 12 months on a project I believed was dumb on a team of at least 30 to 40. I thought no one was going to pay for it and it made no sense why we were building it. I told my manager my feelings and he brushed them off. A year later the entire project was wound down. It had never shipped past an extremely limited beta. It completely failed to generate any sort of traction or product mar…

I'm sure you voicing yours concerns led to your manager taking proactive measures to prevent... his own career tanking by moving to another team.

Re: Story: “It would be career limiting..."

#160

Post by peteradio »

blitz_skull wrote: post #127
acheron wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's how the Challenger blew up. Sometimes one side is right, and the other side is wrong, and it doesn't matter if they didn't "communicate and strategize" or "read the room". Obviously this guy is probably writing about a Javascript photo-sharing app or something and it doesn't actually matter, but it's the same principle. The managers who went ahead here would have gone ahead with launching the shuttle for t…

I think your comment actually supports the original comment. If what's at stake is a $60M javascript photo-sharing app, then you gotta decide how much you care to massage egos and play the game. If you're literally putting human lives at risk and you think there's a real chance of death, what a petty thing to say, "Oh well they should've just listened! It's a high-stakes game!" Do be clear, this doesn't shift the res…

What a horrible truth, hate to upvote but you may be right. But why is it engineers who must rise to the political occasion?
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