Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

doomedprojects.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 342 posts

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

#161

Post by bawolff »

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…

> I mean this story is cathartic, but I don't get what the "rabble rousers" expected to happen...

I think it depends what the rabble rousers actually wanted.

Did they really want to fix the problems, or did they want to give management one last opportunity to address the issues before deciding to move on to other opportunities?

The person telling the story seems to end it on what they precieve as a happy note. They quit and they felt good about quiting. Perhaps the outcome was a good outcome for them.

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

#162

Post by notimetorelax »

maptime wrote: post #66
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…

It sounds like you were working on the project without enough contact with users to understand the value of the thing you were building. That doesn't sound like it's your fault!

I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault at all. Business people’s job is to understand what users want and developer’s job is to figure out how to best build it.

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

#163

Post by d23 »

mring33621 wrote: post #133
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…

There's a lot of apologizing in this thread for incompetent/lying management. Many of us 'less socially aware' (or perhaps 'neuro diverse') people would like this waste to disappear. If I suck at coding, you have no issue letting me go. If you suck at management, then I have no issue letting you go. Symmetry is beautiful.

I smell a lot of captains of industry with stockholm syndrome in those takes. They fetishize self-serving sociopathy -- which is frequently just compensation for deep incompetence.

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

#164

Post by pyrale »

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…

> And doing it in front of a group of management, no less - that's like firing a shot across the bow, declaring that the current PM team is incompetent.

As it turns out, they were wrong.

The project management was actually fraudulent.

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

#165

Post by Mathnerd314 »

tootie wrote: post #122
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like Agile would have been a great fit. Too many requirements, no real information - it's exactly the situation where throwing out prototypes and getting feedback can lead to a solution.

Agile is great for running execution teams and gives you real-time feedback on progress, but if you have a contract with fixed scope and timeline, you're just boxed in. Agile requires flexibility on time and/or scope and it's not amenable to a services contract unless you have a very trusting customer.

It's not clear how long the project lasted but it was at least 3.5 years. So the time-line couldn't have been that rigid; yes there was a Gantt chart but those are like horoscopes. And since the requirements kept coming in there was no fixed scope.

As far as the customer goes you can say something like "we'd like to deliver a prototype early" and then it sounds like you're exceeding the contract. You just have to get them to prioritize features while avoiding discussing the fact that it's impossible to deliver all the features they requested. Basically you treat the lists as a wishlist rather than a requirements list. Maybe you come clean later once they like the prototype.

I'm not saying it would have saved the project, I'm just saying it's better than giving up and saying "the project is doomed" like OP did. But maybe OP wasn't cut out for a leadership role.

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

#166

Post by mcv »

mandevil wrote: post #148
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like Agile would have been a great fit. Too many requirements, no real information - it's exactly the situation where throwing out prototypes and getting feedback can lead to a solution.

Here is where the outsourcing happening in this story comes back to bite, though. It's basically impossible to write a good contract for an Agile development process. (The only time I've seen it at all is in gov't work, where cost-plus is the default way to pay, and it doesn't often produce good software.) If I'm the customer, why would I accept anything less than X for the amount of money I'm paying, and if I'm the…

Contracts for non-Agile processes are pretty worthless too if the project happens like this. If I understand correctly, the client ended up swallowing the cost for being intentionally lied to.

In an Agile process, the client would be much more closely involved with the development, attend sprint reviews, ask questions, and be available for questions about whether to drop features or extend the deadline. The client can make an informed decision and sound the alarm when too much time is spent on things they don't need.

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

#167

Post by BlargMcLarg »

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…

Your solution to a dumpster fire is to play a very risky game of hero, navigating an environment where at any point you could step on someone's toes, in hopes of salvaging a project for which there is absolutely no guarantee you'll get credit, let alone a sizeable reward, while the market is rife with opportunities. For a bunch of capitalists, not some noble goal.

Forgive me, but playing hero (really just martyr) sounds like the absolute least logical thing to do.

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

#169

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

PaulHoule wrote: post #156

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…

Forgive my ignorance of "Enterprise" software, but what does "implementing Peoplesoft" involve, exactly? Isn't it like SAP where it's a base system with some predefined starter templates that you customize? And to "customize" means just adding custom fields and data-entry forms, and wire it all up to an ERP and something like Biztalk? How does that add-up to $100m?

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

#170

Post by d23 »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #124
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…

The lesson for engineers is that it is better to fail than try to lead. Should have just arrived at the handoff with a half finished project and a new job offer, leaving the business types with the mess.

I love that your cynical, worker-self-serving take is downvoted while the top comment is an equally cynical management-self-serving take.
Post reply on HN