??? In organizations which focus on short-term fluctuations and lose sight of long-term objectives,
such short-sightedness becomes self-reinforcing. The more the long-term goals go unattended,
the more a project manager feels powerless, and the greater the need to prove that he or she is in
control of daily events at least. Expect great hostility at triage and bug meetings, and constant
questioning of your role, as the failing project manager attempts to distract attention. There will
also be many spurious attempts to waste your time with requests for print-outs of test scripts and
obscure data. Always provide them and log each request. This will tell you when the bad times
occurred for the project manager, and what sort of requests to expect.
??? In organizations with conflicting goals, particularly those which fail to appreciate the central
importance of IT to its health, a project manager may have to spend half his time re-educating
senior management. You can help by explaining what would have happened to the business were
the 10 biggest bugs not found by your team.
??? Some organizations are dominated by a plan-free culture to avoid any possibility of blame for
having failed to meet the requirements of that plan. The lack of plans is frequently matched by a
Story
lasdair was not God??™s gift to programming. Black Jack told him so with his usual sense
of tact and camaraderie. ???Alasdair, yer effing program disnae4 effing work!??? he screamed.
Pages:
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373