Project Death Spiral: Everything you know is wrong. Again.

Late afternoon meeting with PMv1 yesterday, attended by the only two members of the Death Spiral team available (one's sick, one's temporarily fled the country, and the third refused to come in to work today for fear it would cost him his sanity) wherein we were told that everything we've been told about the project scope over the last three months and worked our tasks around is wrong, because Sluggo never had formal, documented approval for any of the changes he was trying to make to the project plan originally laid down by PMv1.

News to us, certainly, and while it wasn't entirely unexpected that didn't make it anymore welcome. I suspect it was also news to PMv1, who'd said nothing about this at any point beforehand and had probably been looking furiously for a way to reinstate his vision for Death Spiral (i.e. the flawed, arse-about vision which deliberately builds in at least one level of unnecessary and inaccurate work requiring an expensive and inaccurate "quick-fix" solution). Fortunately for him, Sluggo appears to have been constitutionally incapable of producing any actual work, or documenting anything remotely useful or relevant, so it's been very easy to dismiss anyything Sluggo said that PMv1 doesn't agree with.

Of course if he'd done this at any point over the last few months when he still had overall control of Death Spiral and knew what Sluggo was up to, this would have saved everyone a lot of grief and misunderstanding, but then he wouldn't have been able to transform Sluggo into the Universal Scapegoat.

Which now leaves the Death Spiral staff with the task of looking back over three months of work and deciding what fits in with PMv1's reborn vision, what has to be reworked entirely, and what's turned out to be just so much wasted effort.

With, as we discovered at the meeting, PMv1 reviewing the results all the while and telling us we still don't understand and are getting it all wrong. Because it's not about what we want, or what the stakeholders want, or even doing things the right way when reality intrudes - it's all about following his plan.

Project Death Spiral: "software that does everything"

A couple of hours down the line, and the "software that does everything" scenario is certainly making unemployment look a lot more attractive.

As the score stands now, our business analyst can't wait to flee (as a matter of principle he doesn't want to terminate his contract, but I think he's reaching a point where he'd gnaw off his own arm rather than sign any extension to it); the last of the original temps is pretty much burned-out from all the changes in direction, backflips and conflicting stories and is waiting for her contract to lapse at the end of the month; my minion might be offered an opportunity to jump ship to Brother of Death Spiral (where they'll at least give her additional training and an opportunity to learn a few more skils in the role they have in mind for her); and, of course, I'm leaving.

In a fortnight's time, the only person left will be the newest temp who's desperate for money but has the least background or familiarity with the ins and outs of Death Spiral.

Project Death Spiral: full speed astern

Death Spiral has been desperately in need of some key software tool since before its inception, and it just hasn't happened. We came close a month ago when our business analyst compiled the specs and documentation needed to put out a Request For Quote, and things seemed like they might happen. Then PMv1 vetoed further progress until he came back from holiday, because he wanted big stakeholder meetings and workshops controlled by the project office rather than individual consultation with stakeholders by our business analyst.

Now PMv1's back, and we had the first big, happy gathering yesterday, where a handful of bewildered stakeholders turned up wondering why there were going through this again. PMv1 didn't attend, but the project manager from Brother of Death Spiral was there and too the opportunity to drop the following bombshell.

"I think we should ignore the fact that Death Spiral has needed this software for ages, and look for a solution that will do everything.

"Oh, and by the way - I've bypassed all you stakeholders and outlined my grand vision to your boss, and he thinks it's a good idea. So whaddya say, team?"

There's the sound of a collective jaw dropping. I look at our business analyst, and he's looking carefully neutral and non-committal. Smart move - I know he's not in favour of the idea, but he has to go back to the Project Office alone after this meeting, where he'll be punished for his treachery.

The BoDS project manager continues.

"So I'm proposing we hijack this RFQ, get Death Spiral's business analyst to work it up into a much bigger, all-encompassing document with expanded specifications, and then we can go out to market with a full tender."

The jaws remain dropped. I'm still watching our business analyst, and the neutral expression cracks long enough for me to see a look of frozen horror on his face as he realises the Project Office plans to extend his contract.

My operational manager speaks up to agree that something that does everything is a fine idea, but he really needs something that does what the Death Spiral software is intended to do now.

"Absolutely," says the BoDS PM, "but the potential is here, now, to make this RFQ into something bigger that will solve all our problems for years to come. That's something worth aiming for, even if it means things take a little longer."

("Taking a little longer" in this case means easily another six months or more. Our business analyst flinches again).

Everyone else in the room is sitting in a stunned silence. Not only isn't this what they'd been expecting to hear, it's only barely in the same hemisphere as the meeting's original topic.

"Do we actually know what this 'everything' that we want to try to do actually is?" asks one stakeholder cautiously.

"Everything that isn't already in Death Spiral's requirements," comes the reply. "What they want is too specific."

"But that's because this was being bought for Death Spiral to meet Death Spiral's needs."

"Well, I've been looking at it, and even though it's got nothing to do with Brother of Death Spiral, I think what I want needs to take priority over what the people involved with Death Spiral may have thought they wanted."

"Whereabouts is PMv1?" asks another. "He's managing Death Spiral - what does he think about this?"

Still dazed with fear, our business analyst answers without thinking. "He wasn't keen to come to - I mean, he had another meeting to go to."

"I've spoken to your boss," the BoDS PM reminds everyone, "and he thinks it's a good idea. So I think we should have our business analyst write an expanded document and get the steering committee to approve it so we can get things underway."

"I think it would be a good idea to let us stakeholders work out whether it's even possible in the first place before derailing Death Spiral yet again," ventures another, rousing himself from a state of deep shock.

"Of course it's possible. How hard can it be to find a software solution that will do everything? I think it's actually quite simple, so it must be. Anyway, I've got another meeting to go to, so I'll talk to you all later after the business analyst has had time to draft a new RFQ."

He breezes out. People sit and look at one another, dumbfounded.

Finally our business analyst breaks the silence. "So, ah, shall we consider the meeting over for now?"

Project Death Spiral: carrots away, sticks out

Okay, the real PMv1 has returned. Presumably yesterday's jovial impostor has been dropped into the river to feed the sharks.

First there was the e-mail informing us that if we all do things his way and respect his authoritah then he's sure we can all get along just fine.

"I don't know what you're previous project managers [let's ignore that he was one of them, shall we?] and team leaders have been letting you get away with, but I'll have you know I run a very tight ship and want eight productive hours a day out of all of you!"

Henceforth we're to organise a whiteboard in The Shed on which we're to document all our movements and locations at all times of the day, much to the amusement of our Business Analyst, who is now no longer alone in enduring the whiteboard tyranny. And we'll be checked up on, presumably as part of PMv1's daily eight hours of productive work.

(In fact all we need to do is get some heavy duty cleaner to take off Sluggo's scribbles, where he used permanent marker to write up things he later tried to deny having said in the first place.

Team Death Spiral, pointing at the whiteboard: "It's behind you!"

Sluggo: "Oh, no it's not!"

Team Death Spiral: "Oh, yes it is!"

Sluggo, turning around and looking everywhere but at the whiteboard: "Oh, no it's not!"

Alarums and hi-jinx ensue.)

Now comes a second e-mail, reminding us that we must file all electronic documents relating to Death Spiral in the appropriate directories. Not unreasonable in itself, but he goes on to add (again) that he doesn't know what our previous project managers and team leaders told us, or didn't tell us (and let's just recap - this is Death Spiral's original project manager talking) but there's a very specific way that things must be done, and if we all do exactly what he says then there's no reason we can't all get along just fine.

Just like one big, happy family.

Kind of like the Mansons.

Project Death Spiral: Autopsy

PMv1 is back from holiday today and has begun running through what Sluggo has left behind for him. The meetings begin, and bizarrely he stays in a great mood through all of them as he begins giving his version of the Death Spiral story. Perhaps he's cheerful because he's now found the ultimate scapegoat in Sluggo, someone no-one across the organisation was happy with.

(Scapegoating is a reprehensible practice, to be sure, but in this case I really only find it objectionable in principle).

From the Project Office history of events:

• Sluggo was regularly told to do one thing, before running off and trying to do the exact opposite;
• Sluggo (apparently) was trying to set me up as his scapegoat to get around having to produce any project deliverable of his own. Nice to know I wasn't the only one who saw that one coming a mile off;
• we humble Shed-dwellers hadn't seen Sluggo's revised project management plan for the simple reason that he'd been told a month ago that the one he'd produced was rubbish, and to do it again - properly! (There's those famous Project Office people skills again);
• Sluggo had been told explicitly what he was supposed to be doing ... but kept shooting off in other directions that usually led to the things we were doing being derailed in favour of what he felt was a priority at that moment (traditionally, Sluggo would then come back a day later and want to put things back the way they'd been);
• things Sluggo was declaring out of scope were, in fact, still very much in scope, always had been, and always would be;
• Sluggo is the new Root Of All Evil on Project Death Spiral.

For Sluggo's sake, I hope he never has to rely on a reference from here to get another job, because he'll be lucky if prospective employers don't tar and feather him, and then set him alight before pushing him into the street.

On the other hand, that could be kind of funny...

Project Death Spiral: the customer is always irrelevant

Our long-suffering business analyst (technically he's only been suffering for about six weeks, but it feels longer for him. And he's only halfway through his contract here) has been given further instructions from PMv1 to alter the Request For Quote he's written up for the software Death Spiral needed before it started.

"I'm not happy. You've made too many requirements 'Mandatory'. Make them 'Highly Desirable' instead, so we're not locked into buying something that does what we need it to do."

"These are the needs the stakeholders have identified. I've gone through it with them several times to make sure we're not asking for specifications we don't need."

"Don't care. Get rid of the 'Mandatory' stuff."

So our BA does as he's told - PMv1 is his boss, and it never pays to argue with a sociopath.

And once we've had all the obligatory talk-fests to rehash everything that the stakeholders have already been consulted on, we can then (maybe, depending on how PMv1 interprets the entrails of a sacrificial goat) go out to market for a product that doesn't actually need to do any of the things we need it for in the first place.

Sluggo may be gone, but Death Spiral continues unabated.

Project Death Spiral: Risk Register Update

[Ed: No, I don't know why this is positioning itself so far down the screen. If you have any thoughts, let me know.]

Risk	Description	Variance
25%	Shed swept away in floods, drowning all Project staff	+/- 0%
22%	All Project staff leaving	+ 6%
15%	Shed catching fire, incinerating all Project staff	+/- 0%
11%	Successful completion of Project Death Spiral	- 9%

Project Death Spiral: coming soon!

http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20050914.html

Positively uncanny.

Project Death Spiral: the verdict

He was pushed. From what I gather the exchange went something like this.

Sluggo: "I've accepted a better, higher-paying job elsewhere and I'll be leaving."

Project Office Manager: "Ingrate! You're terminated immediately! Go! Leave! Reprobate!"

Sluggo (via e-mail): "I'm outta here. You all suck."

Project Death Spiral: another one bites the dust

Arrive at work this morning after a day off sick, not really looking forward to my morning meeting with Sluggo, and discover on checking my calendar that he's cancelled the meeting (not unusual in itself - he's been doing that a lot lately, usually when PMv1 as said he wants to come along to see how things are going).

Then I check my e-mail and learn that not only has the meeting been cancelled, but he's quit, too.

Woo-hoo! This is the first time Sluggo has managed to make me feel motivated in a good way (as opposed to the "I've got to get out of this place" reaction he usually inspires).

Unsurprisingly, the e-mail in which he announces that he's leaving immediately (for a vastly higher-paying job with a global firm, naturally) was also an exercise in barely-restrained dummy-spitting at what he sees as his mistreatment here.

But the big question remains: did he fall, or was he pushed after last week's "site inspection" shenanigans?

Project Death Spiral: Waiting for Sluggot

The Project Office is still trying to find Sluggo. He still eludes capture. I'll bet they're sorry they didn't tag him with a GPS chip when they still had the chance.

Access Denied

The entire security system for the main building is down, and no-one's swipe cards work anywhere. Except in The Shed. We can still go out and in at will. We just can't go anywhere else.

Like the toilets.

Must be some kind of motivational thing.

"Site inspections, eh?"

The project office is trying to catch up with Sluggo to let him know about the contractor that's leaving. But he hasn't given them his personal mobile number (because then they might be able to find him), so they're ringing around all the places he might be.

They've accepted that he's not hiding down here (they only rang three times to check), and they've tried ringing the sites he's supposedly inspecting for the next two days, but no-one there has seen him either.

Sluggo seems to be working hard to get himself in trouble again. Or else he really does think he's as clever as he keeps telling us he is...

HR, Sluggo-style

Apparently Sluggo had a brainwave on Monday about how to deal with the upcoming staffing crunch on Project Death Spiral. As yet he doesn't know about yesterday's loss of another contractor, so who knows what plans he'll try hatching then?

The summarised version: Sluggo believes it's a viable option to take one of the Death Spiral veterans off the project and throw them into an operational role for which they have no training and no experience, in order to free up my minion for more project work on her return from her holidays.

And if this leaves us short on experienced staff, why, an inexperienced temp can then be brought in and trained up. It will only take a month or so to get them up to speed, and take up a large chunk of my minion's time.

Possibly he realises how obviously flawed his plan is, because he hasn't actually approached my and my minion's operational manager to see whether he's willing to let Sluggo randomly rearrange his staff to fit around Death Spiral's various brain farts.

Negative reinforcement

Ah, good old Sluggo... Leave it to him to remind me of why I'm leaving here.

I wonder if it would be out of line for me to ask him for a detailed breakdown of what Death Spiral activities he has in progress and how he proposes to hand his work over to PMv1, because I'm increasingly concerned about Death Spiral's apparent lack of direction?

By close of business today, naturally, as he is leaving Death Spiral before I am.

(Seriously, demanding that I have stuff to him "by close of business today" is simply laughable when he's planning to spend the rest of the week conducting "site inspections" and not check into The Shed or the Project Office at all. I don't use the word "wanker" often, but in his case I feel its perfectly warranted.)

Racing the Titanic

One of the contractors is very excited, as she's found another job and starts on Monday. Even more exciting for her, she doesn't have to see Sluggo ever again, as he dropped by this morning to chat and told us that he'll be doing "site inspections" for the next couple of days and will see us for an update meeting next week.

"Site inspections" seem to be what he does when he has enough of working up in the Project Office and runs out of pretexts on which to come down to The Shed. Instead he announces that he's off to inspect one of the sites related to the other two projects he's managing.

(Although he's said recently that one of these has been shelved for the moment, so you'd think that would cut down on the sites he needs to inspect. And he spent a lot of time inspecting sites last week, too, come to think of it. Funny, too, that these always seem to take place shortly after lunch...)

But anyway, this means that three weeks from now, Death Spiral will be manned by my minion (freshly returned from holidays with no idea of what she's walking into), one contractor of (by then) four weeks' experience, and (possibly) the sole remaining original contractor (now more convinced than ever that she needs to find an escape route). Somewhere in the background our poor business analyst will no doubt be undergoing some esoteric form of torture in the depths of the Project Office for being efficient.

And managing it all will be PMv1, he of the many dodgy initial decisions, staunch advocate of multiple meetings and workshops, and fierce opponent of talking to stakeholders.

At least there's still time to rearrange the deckchairs.

Project Death Spiral: grenade without a pin

I break the news to Sluggo that I'm leaving. His reaction is not what I'd expected - I expected he'd mutter and curse for a while because of the impact on Project Death Spiral. Instead he seems excited and happy, and I don't think it's just because he'll be rid of me in a few weeks, because he's not that good an actor. He's positively effusive in telling me what a smart decision it is to get away from here, how it's the best thing I could do, etc etc...

He actually manages to sound sincere. I'm impressed. I didn't think he was capable of that.

And then, almost as an aside, it becomes clear. Sluggo's relationship with PMv1 has been deteriorating steadily (strangely it started to degenerate around the same time Sluggo produced and circulated a document in which he laid the blame for all of Death Spiral's woes at the feet of PMv1), and in a couple of weeks' time Sluggo is handing back control of Death Spiral to PMv1.

So Sluggo wants to hand PMv1 as big a mess as possible, as long as he can't be held personally accountable for it.

What a freakshow I'm working in.

Project Death Spiral: "It ate that one girl's brain!"

Muah-hah. The new temp that Sluggo brought on with a view to replacing me on the process documentation just sat down with me to go through the processes and the implementation plan I'd been struggling with.

It wasn't so much a learning curve for her as a concrete wall on the runway.

"But you can't do any of this stuff until you cover the basics first. And we're still waiting to do the basics!"

"Well, yes. That's what the rest of us have been trying to tell you since you started."

"But ... none of this makes sense. It's all the wrong way around! You can't do things this way!"

"Yes, we've been saying that, too."

"But ... stupid. It's all so stupid. And full of holes. Hasn't anyone noticed?"

"Well we've all noticed, and it's been pointed out."

"How can you make any progress, working like that?"

"We pointed that out, too."

"Urgh ... brain hurts ... can't think anymore ... why???"

"The project office wanted to go ahead anyway."

"Please ... no more ... brain aneurism ... aarrrrgghhhh"

- THUD -

Another one for the slow learner's class, it seems.

Cow-orker: my own personal Category 5 storm

Bloody hell... I've been trapped on the phone by the Cow-orker for the last twenty minutes as she tries to cajole me into remembering the fine details of an 8,500 unit order from 15 months ago.

I try explaining that I placed the order well over a year ago and my memory of the details is hazy. For some reason she doesn't believe me. In fact she tries to argue that it really wasn't that long ago at all, even through the purchase order she's looking is clearly dated June 2004. I know that for a fact because I made her read it out to me, and she still tries to convince me that I was exaggerating the length of time that had elapsed. Argh. It's a miracle my eye hasn't started twitching.

"I'm sure a mistake was made," she repeats for the fiftieth time as she describes (in Cow-orker terms, of course) all the steps she's taken to query a database system I haven't used in four months. "I need to know about 900 of those units - can you remember who out of the 200-odd clients covered on that order these ones were ordered for?"

It's a struggle to convince her that I can't. She seems to be set against believing that I can't just give her all the answers to the questions she's asking.

You can probably tell just how much meaningful input I've been able to have in this conversation by the fact that I've been typing this one-handed while she babbles away on the other end.

On the bright side it's been a glowing reminder as to why it would be so terribly foolish to apply for any jobs back at my old work...

Candid Camera

Sluggo is trying to schedule recurring weekly appointments with me. Apparently no-one's told him yet that I'm leaving. It feels like one of those candid camera episodes where some poor sod is lured in off the street and given some meaningless and humiliating task to do while the host gloats via voice-over: "Now, what we haven't told him is..."

So the universe appears to have a sense of justice after all. And if it has a sense of humour, too, I'll get to be there when he ends up getting the metaphorical pie in the face.

Project Death Spiral: *everybody* needs steenkin' badgers

Introduced The Shed to http://badgerbadgerbadger.com. Now all three contractors have it lodged firmly in their heads, and have had to turn the radio on to stop themselves singing quietly "Badger badger badger" without realising it.

Which is a pity, because before they did that they were doing a lovely job of singing it in rounds.

One, two, Freddy's coming for you...

Our business analyst, trapped in the Project Office to stop him talking to stakeholders, heard a rumour that one of the senior project managers conducted regular headcounts throughout the day to keep track of the contractors making up the majority of the Project Office staff (one of the quirks of the Project Office is that they advertise for and hire large numbers of contractors with specific fields of expertise ... and then assign them to projects outside of their skill set. The Project Office Manager takes the Dodgeball approach - "If you can manage a project, you can manage anything").

He didn't believe the stories.

Until yesterday, that is, when he noticed the project manager in question slip out of his office and move quietly about the Project Office checking cubicles and counting heads, before returning to the Great Whiteboard and making notes on the "Naughty" and "Nice" list. He repeats the exercise two more times that day, and carries out all the checks again today - once at 8.30am to make sure everyone's in, again shortly after morning tea to make sure that everyone's come back, and then again after lunch.

"I kept my head down and pretended I didn't notice him. I was afraid of what would happen if he saw me watching."

"Screw you guys... "

"I'm going home."

I think I'm pretty much done with the Project Office, Project Death Spiral and Sluggo. I didn't survive years of punishment at the hands of the Cow-orker just to wind up working in an environment where "Dance for us, Monkey-boy!" is considered a motivational speech.

Pointy-haired thinking

"Hmm..." thinks Sluggo, "if I assign this e-mail I sent earlier as a task, then he'll do it faster than if I just leave it as an e-mail asking for information. He won't mind the same person asking him multiple times for the same information by the same deadline."

Prat.

And it was such a nice neighbourhood

One of the new occupants of The Shed will be Evil Devito. Presumably they couldn't stand having him indoors anymore.

Their gain is our loss.

We *will* tell you when the lambs stop screaming

The weekly project meeting drags on while Sluggo tells us about his great and mighty efforts at combatting the evil of the Project Office. One of the contractors amuses herself by doodling on her copy of the minutes, drawing pictures of her puppy. Then the puppy drawing goes horribly wrong ("He looked like Hannibal Lectre!") and she hastily rubs out the sketch after nearly rupturing her lungs trying to contain her laughter every time she looks at it.

"I figured looking bored was okay, but suddenly pissing myself laughing for no reason would be harder to explain."

"Join us..."

The Cow-orker has been keeping in touch, and I've been letting her and a few others at my old work know how things have been going.

Now she's trying to convince the Crazy Man that they should try to find a place for me back there, maybe rolling the Secondary Cow-orker (who's been sulking since I left) out of her support position.

"He said he'd see what he could to get you back here," she says encouragingly, "but he's not sure how he'll go."

"Fair enough. I've heard wild horses can be tricky to find at this time of year," I reply.

Chinese Whispers

Another project sharing The Shed has wound up (lucky, lucky bastards) and their desks are now empty.

PMv1 to technician: "I want you to take all the computers off the desks and lock them in that office."

Tech: "What's the point of that, when new people are going to be sitting at these desks next week and I'll just have to set the PCs up all over again?"

PMv1: "Don't question your orders! This is how the Department Head wants things done, and this is how you'll do them?"

Department Head wanders into The Shed a couple of hours later, looks bewildered, and exits to find the technician.

"Why are all the computer's piled up on Marcus's desk?"

Tech: "PMv1 said that's what you wanted done."

Department Head: "Why would I want that done? It's stupid. Put them back."

PMv1 resumes control of Project Death Spiral in around two weeks.

Parriah

How to make a contractor feel welcome #127.

Our business analyst came down to a meeting with us. We suspect it will only be a short meeting, but have booked him for a whole hour so that he has the option of not having to return immediately to the project office.

He's appreciative, but explains that it probably doesn't matter: "I have the place to myself. Everybody else has gone off to a morning tea, and I wasn't invited."

Because when you're part of the project office, nothing spoils the appetite more, it seems, than having one of those filthy contractors at the same table.

The mark of the beast

One contractor points out to the BA that he's not wearing his security tag.

"Don't you have one?"

"I have one. I just don't like wearing it."

"Why not?"

"It makes me feel like I belong. I don't want to belong here."

Breaking the chain of command

We have a business analyst in at the moment to navigate the Council's labyrinthine purchasing process and prepare specifications for the software that would have made Death Spiral a breeze if the Project Office hadn't decided it made more sense to buy the software two-thirds of the way through rather than at the start when it would have been most advantageous.

But, y'know, if we'd bought it at the start then we wouldn't have had all this triplication of effort and working in the dark, and where would be the fun in that?

Anyway, the BA's done an impressive job so far, and has put together pretty much all the documentation in just over two weeks. He's also upset PMv1 in the process.

This is partly because he didn't use the approved method - he was supposed to hold numerous meetings; kill thousands of trees circulating draft documents that don't get read; and then hold more meetings where people alternate between boredom and fighting with other attendees over who has responsibility for what.

Mostly, though, it's because he was talking to individual stakeholders, identifying their needs, and producing results. And that's just not on.

A word on Evil Devito

Who is Evil Devito? Maybe this earlier encounter with him will help explain:

Another project manager (who resembles a Sicilian Danny Devito, but without the charm, charisma or humour) lectured me today for half an hour on why Project Death Spiral is irrelevant, making things worse for the City Council, and should be entirely subordinate to his own project (The Grand Project that will make everything right or, alternatively, simply makes everything that conflicts with it redundant).

He then went on to declare himself a Death Spiral stakeholder (more fool him, really), and it was with great pleasure that I gave him PMv2's phone number, with the words: "Here's the man to talk to."

By the time I get back to my desk from the harangue, Evil Devito has already been on the phone with PMv2 and scheduled an appointment. PMv2 is foaming at the mouth in anticipation.

Damning with faint praise

I'll say this much for Sluggo: he has an amazing knack for annihilating motivation and inspiring the maximum amount of apathy with a single e-mail.

Why he seems to feel the need to send several such e-mails a day remains a mystery, though.

Okay, I've praised Caesar - now can I bury him?

In the cage

A glorious start to the day - the project office has decreed that we must keep the doors of The Shed closed at all times. No idea why, exactly, unless they're afraid someone will come in and steal the hutches, but that's the ruling from the powers that be.

Sluggo is making indignant noises about raising this as a workplace health & safety issue, but it's anyone's guess as to how he expects to make any progress on us having fresh air when we can't get any action on working in a firetrap.

Although perhaps they might take pity on us having to work in an enclosed space with Sluggo...

Project Death Spiral: stealth recruitment

I half-suspect Sluggo has decided to replace me when it comes to dealing with the endless rewrites he wants done to project documentation, something I'm not opposed to in the slightest. However he's going about it in typically underhanded fashion and hoping no-one notices.

What he's done is to hire another contractor, ostensibly to deal with the grunt work. But he's selected one who's ridiclously over-qualified for the level of work she's being asked to do. Now he's started hinting that I should begin showing her some of the project documentation I'm working on, and maybe get her to do a little.

And then a little bit more.

And so on, until we finish with the new contractor being paid grunt wages to perform a higher-level job. Then Sluggo can triumphantly wave around completed documentation and claim to have saved money by utilising existing resources (rather than specifically advertising for someone with the skillset he was really after and paying them accordingly).

Project Death Spiral: absent cats

The project office appears to be missing its upper management today, and the individual project managers (most of them contractors paid on an hourly basis) have celebrated their freedom by scattering to the four winds now that no-one's watching their movements. Sluggo has returned to The Shed (and you can feel the joy in the air when that happens), cheerfully announcing that now he can have an easy day, and that he plans to leave early into the bargain.

And yet he still seems surprised and outraged that the head of the Project Office insists on keeping tabs on where the contractors are and what they're actually doing...

Project Death Spiral: pot, meet kettle

Just discovered that while our document management system is eccentric, it's also treacherously honest about document histories. For example, the two primary documents Sluggo has been telling us he's been working hard at revising for the last two months (but has never seemed to finish, strangely) have only been worked on for about the last two weeks - and intermittently, at that.

So if he's not actually producing any documentation, and not actually reading any of the existing stuff, it makes sense that he's desperate for me to complete a major project document that he can then brandish at people to demonstrate productivity.

What a creature he is...

Project Death Spiral: in the brig

Project Office admin person came down and was horrified to discover we had The Shed door open.

"But these are supposed to be closed!" and she begins trying to lock us in (confirming my suspicion that The Shed is meant as some form of solitary confinement).

We hurry over to the door to stop her, and try to explain that we keep the door open for ventilation.

"But you have air-conditioners, can't you use them?"

More explanations. We're working in a corrugated iron structure, oriented north-south, with no overhanging shade (except for a couple of palm trees that drop leaf litter into the gutters of the flat roof and cause water to back up inside the ceiling when it rains). The Shed heats up very rapidly, and the air-conditioners (positioned right above people's desks, and we can't move the desks because then we violate The Plan) deafen everyone when they're running at full blast to compensate. On the other hand, simply leaving the door open gives us plenty of airflow, keeps the place cool, the air fresh, and costs no money.

Admin person looks dubious about our motives, but grudgingly concedes that "the door is supposed to remain closed" doesn't really stack up well as a counter-argument and slinks away.

She'll be back, though. Sooner or later they'll either burn us alive, freeze us to death (corrugated iron and no insulation cuts both ways - found that out last week), or bake us at our desks. And if they can't manage that, they'll deafen us.

Project Death Spiral: Of slugs in suits

Just had the meeting with PMv2 that he set up last week. It wasn't as confrontational as I'd been expecting, which made it more productive and less of a trial than I'd feared (which is good) but at the same time it's taken the edge off my sense that I need to flee this madhouse (which is bad).

Clearly I'm too easily mollified and need to work harder at maintaining grudges.

There was a somewhat insincere apology for giving me "a hard time" last week. Apparently he did it for my benefit, because he knew my probation review was coming up and wanted to make sure I produced something that I could show my operational manager. And of course a personal attack cc'ed to me operational manager is just the way to do that. It's possible that this was some fiendishly clever plan on his part to make me look like an innocent victim, but I have trouble buying that one.

I might not be good at holding grudges, but I'm not stupid.

The first half hour covers the useful stuff, including the bombshell that, according to his reading of the project plan, actually doing anything useful with what we discover isn't part of the project scope (i.e. is hard, requires resources, doesn't yield glamorous results), reducing Death Spiral to a level where we just gather data and materials for the sake of it and don't do anything meaningful with it.

Oh, and I need to redraft all the pre-existing project documentation into the approved project office templates, even though the processes need to be documented in their existing format so that they're consistent with QA documentation.

And he didn't actually read most of what I'd written. I know this because he prefaced the meeting with "I haven't read through most of this". He just wanted it to look like the project template and see a couple of dates written down. Doesn't need to know what the dates relate to or whether they're realistic. They just need to be there in the right font.

Then comes the obligatory part of any conversation with PMv2.

• Talking about all the other projects he's managing and how important they are?
  Check.
• All was in chaos before he arrived?
  Check.
• Everything's going well?
  Check.
• Moaning about HR issues?
  Check.
• He'd love to see the project through to the end, but thinks he'll be moved on?
  Check.
• We're doomed?
  Check.
• Getting confused about what we're doing?
  Check.
• He's had enough of this project and wants out?
  Check.
• It's all someone else's fault?
  Check.
• Swaps roles with someone who pointed out a serious flaw, so that he was the one pointing it out to them, incredulous that they could have missed it?
  Check.
• It's all everybody else's fault?
  Check.
  

I'm careful to avoid stepping on the slime trail on the way out of the meeting room. PMv2 shall henceforth be referred to as "Sluggo".

How 'bout that weather?

It is indeed a cold day in hell. The outside temperature plummets to a brisk 10 degrees, there are reports of snow in the hinterland and sleet only a few kilometres to the south.

Naturally this is the day someone decides that the lock on The Shed's door needs to be replaced with a card-reader, but no-one organises with Security to have it keyed to our cards. So we can't close the door, because then no-one can open it again.

And we sit in our uninsulated, corrugated metal shed with the wind howling in off the river, and watch our breath steam in the air while we lose feelings in our fingertips.

Curious side effects

Amazing what total demoralisation can do to reduce muscle tension. I can't see it catching on as relaxation therapy, but then if someone had told me people would one day inject themselves with botulism to smooth out wrinkles I wouldn't have believed them.

I could be on to something.

Get me out of here

Some impending friction looming with PMv2. He's whingey because I'm not redrafting documentation fast enough for him. I'm cranky because he's not reading what's already there, and because I'm sick of being asked to do stuff that isn't what I signed on for. I schedule a meeting so we can get things sorted out.

He doesn't respond immediately. Curiously also he decides not to attend the project management meeting this afternoon, which is an unusual move for a project manager.

Then I discover why. I come back from the meeting to find a longer, more pompous e-mail (cc'ed to his boss and my operational supervisor, naturally) cataloguing his list of grievances with me and issuing a list of demands, deadlines, and an ultimatum.

Looks like he subscribes to the "beatings will continue until morale improves" school of people skills...

Too many bodies, not enough floorboards

PMv2 gets bored up in the Project Office and comes down to tell us that everything we know is wrong. I don't think he has anyone to talk to up there. I've tuned out much of it (there's the little matter of the Table of Doom that he wants by close of business tomorrow), but he's running in circles trying to explain how he's not really contradicting himself. I think he's developing multiple personalities, because he's having trouble agreeing with himself about anything. I try to ignore him until he says something of interest. My minion foolishly tries to make sense of what he's saying.

PMv2: "We need to start this right now."

Minion: "We can't start this until after we've got authorisation."

PMv2: "That's what I said - we'll start this as soon as we've got authorisation. So can we start this on Monday?"

Minion: "Has it been authorised yet?"

PMv2: "No, but we need to start right away."

... and repeat.

Other news, is that Death Spiral has apparently changed scope yet again. This is one of his justifications for half of what he's saying conflicting with the other half. We're not sure what the scope has changed to, but apparently everything we've done so far has been deemed to be of operational importance, but of no value to the project. We need to concentrate on superficial issues instead (at this point my minion announces with gritted teeth that she has to leave for lunch). And we're not allowed to tell stakeholders that it's a big job and will take time, because they'll get nervous and kill the project.

... and suddenly he realises that no-one in the shed considers this a bad thing anymore, and begins fumbling for other reasons as to why we should lie to the stakeholders. Because hiding the truth from them worked so well through the first eight months of Death Spiral's life.

His fallback position is to complain about the problems he's having dealing with HR issues that shouldn't be his problem to deal with. They're not our problem, either, nor is the fact that he has a problem with them not being his problem. But now they can be our problem, too, because on Project Death Spiral a problem shared is a problem multiplied. No problem.

By the time he leaves he's successfully prevented any work getting done for nearly and hour and a half ... the second time he's done that this week.

Writer's block

What's a good way of saying "it would go a lot faster if you stopped asking me to rewrite it in different formats, wasting our time moaning to us about your problems, and asking for updates twice a day" that isn't likely to end in "now f**k off!"?

More rewrites

Good news: the presentation I was to do today is still okay to go ahead, despite PMv2's decree yesterday about releasing information before it's approved. (Solution: deliver a presentation free of meaningful content).

Bad news: the presentation, I'm not told, has to be scaled back from 15 minutes to 5. But that's okay, because they also want to change the emphasis, too. And they even gave me a whole five hours' notice.

I wish I had some idea of what I was doing here.

Cow-orker: by the pricking of my thumbs...

About 8:20 this morning the tic in my right eye came back. This is the tic that was setting in with increasing frequency when I was still working with the Cow-orker, and which would return within about five minutes of her coming down from Marketing for a visit.

"Hmm," I thought to myself, "she must be doing something really stupid right now."

At 9:20 my phone rings and it's her. She needs some advice about dealing with some of the things that I used to handle, because she's getting stressed out by them.

Half an hour lates I'm still trying to get off the phone. I've given her my advice, she's said "thanks" and "good-bye" at least three of four times and *she just won't go*. All those years of watching her torture people on the other end of the phone, and now it's my turn.

Argh.

I'm typing a "Help me!" e-mail to my old manager when she finally, finally gets off the line.

Burning down the house

We have no fire alarms in the sheds because the sheds aren't attached to the main building, and therefore there's no legal obigation to let people in the sheds know if there's a fire.

I mention this because we've just received a self-congratulatory e-mail announcing that the City Council has been awarded a "Caring Council" award.

Project Death Spiral meets Monday

Severe pointy-hair attack this morning. Amongst all the organisation-generated spam in my Inbox, I find a message from PMv2 asking me to "provide a detailed table" showing 10 different categories across 12 different items. And it must be presented in a Project Office template, which happens to be portrait size (variation from the PO template will not be tolerated). So ... a 12x10 table no wider than the short edge of an A4 sheet. No problem - provided I use 4pt font. Except I don't think 4pt is approved for use in Project Office documents, so I might have a problem here.

That's only the ludicrous part.

The aggravating part is that this is the third incarnation of this information he's asked for - he's already been provided with everything that's available, but wants it summarised in yet another form. Because diversity is good. Should I pre-empt him and supply it as a pie-chart, too, I wonder? This latest request means that not only have I basically wasted my time drafting those earlier documents, I now have to put on hold half the work I'm doing now because he wants to see the Giant Table of Doom first before anything else goes ahead.

Burn, baby, burn

There was a fire drill today. Not that residents of The Shed were told - there are no alarms here, no fire wardens came to check on us or do a head count to make sure we were out safely, and when it was pointed out that the shed only has one door and all the windows are barred, the official & considered response was that a demountable building intended to contain eleven people was too small to warrant an extra exit.

Presumably this means they feel it would be more trouble to cut a door into the wall than to replace up to a dozen crispy-fried staff.

Workplace conversations

Minion (in stream-of-consciousness mode): "... oooh, itchie booby ..."

Stifled snorts from around the room.

Momentary pause.

Temp: "Well if that's the kind of relationship we're going to have, let me tell you all about my balls..."

Just another snapshot of Life in The Shed.

Project Death Spiral: raw nerves

A fairly serious issue has come up. One of those things that's so glaringly obvious in hindsight that it seems impossible no-one identified it at the time. Particularly the people making the decisions back then, like PMv1 and Project Team Leader v1.

While waiting for a meeting to begin yesterday morning, my minion pounced on PTLv1, who was sitting in for someone else, and asks him whether anyone had identified this issue back when the decision was first made.

"Err... no."

She explains.

"Um, no. That's easily fixed, though. There'll be a workaround. Why is it a problem again?" (Inoffensive guy, but not real bright).

Another manager in attendance asked for a couple of details, and suggested some solutions that could be discussed at another meeting later in the week.

And that, as far as we knew, was that. Until this morning when my minion arrived back in the shed after getting some clean drinking water from inside the main building.

"Did you think I was making a personal attack on PTLv1 yesterday?"

"Hell, no. He was still able to walk unassisted. Why?"

Apparently PTLv1 baled up my minion in passing and asked whether she was trying to make a personal attack on him yesterday (which is something only someone who'd never seen her make a personal attack could ask).

My minion brushes it aside. "No, of course not. I'm just trying to work out why no-one saw this coming before now and thought you might know something from back then."

"Well it felt like you were blaming me. I've heard that people are trying to blame me for the project running so far behind schedule when I was running it." (Well, who'd have thought? Chalk it up to one of life's cruel coincidences, I guess).

"Seriously, I haven't given it a second thought."

"Well I was worrying about it all day. Because it wasn't my fault, you know." Suddenly he sees light at the end of the tunnel. "But you were there, too. You were part of all those decisions!"

At this point he comes dangerously close to incurring a real personal attack, but my minion restrains herself and points out that she wasn't the project team leader, and was only told about things (sometimes) after they happened. PTLv1 is starting to sweat a little by this point ("Oh god, she really is trying to put the blame on me!") so she takes pity on him and explains that all she's really interested in doing is trying to get the issue fixed as soon as possible.

"Oh, that's good. Because it really sounded like you were trying to make a personal attack, and I've heard stuff. People are saying things. And it wasn't my fault. Really. Umm..." Some primitive survival instinct sees him retreat back to his office before he digs himself any deeper.

No guilty consciences there, no. Not in the slightest.

Project Death Spiral

I hesitate to throw the word "retarded" around lightly, but I can't think of any better way to describe the template the Project Office have devised for all project-related documents.

It's an interesting experience to bold one word and watch it carry on throughout the entire document. And the same for indenting, dot-pointing, and probably a number of formatting options I haven't tried yet.

Interesting the first time, frustrating everytime thereafter...

Brother of Death Spiral

Another project is just gearing up, which is tangentially related to Project Death Spiral. As an identified stakeholder (see also "drive-by victim"), I was required in a meeting.

The Evil Danny Devito clone also turns up, having identified himself as a stakeholder. He seems to be a stakeholder in every project going at the moment, possibly because project managers have developed a defensive strategy of pointing him at other projects to spread his attention as thinly as possible.

This time around he spends less time trying to emphasise that everyone else is simply duplicating the work of his project (reality has started to intrude, perhaps), and has done some research on the software under discussion. Unfortunately for him, that's all he's done, without actually trying to understand what the software is going to be used for. He's aware that it's a database of some kind, but doesn't know how it's being and will be used. So he concentrates on what he's ovbiously cribbed from the company's website and tries to sound like an authority.

Evil Devito: "I think we need to be able to run this report from it. I read about it, and it sounds like what we need."

Database developer: "Uh, sure. That's just one of the default reports. We can do that without any dramas."

Evil Devito: "Because it's perfect for what we need. It gives us that big picture overview, so we need to be able to access this."

DB developer: "Okay..."

Meeting chair: "We already have the big picture, Evil Devito. I don't think we need to dwell on being able to run a report that's part of what we're getting out of the box."

Evil Devito: "But once we get it, we can show people! And they'll be impressed! By the way, we have far too many categories in our database." He rattles off some statistics. "That's way too many. We need to delete some - look at this list!"

DB administrator: "Uh, that report you've pulled includes all the subcategories and other fields. You could delete all of them, but then you're database would be an unusable mess."

Sensing he's losing his audience, Evil Devito introduces his other bugbear for the meeting: the "squillions of spreadsheets" that are plaguing the organisation.

Evil Devito: "Squillions, I tell you! We need to get rid of them all by incorporating them all into this database!"

My minion: "Why?"

Evil Devito: "Squillions! All that data, stored in spreadsheets!"

Minion: "What kind of spreadsheets?"

Evil Devito: "What part of 'squillions' aren't you following? They're a plague and we must be rid of them!"

Minion: "Most of them are probably reports people are using to analyse what's in the database. Like we do. If you take away the spreadsheets, people aren't going to be able to do their jobs properly."

Evil Devito: "Spreadsheets must die! The database is the only solution!"

Minion: "Even if we can't manipulate the data that comes out of it?"

Evil Devito twitches, then turns to the person beside him. "Squillions of spreadsheets. Everywhere, I tell you!"

Dammit.

Now there's a credenza back in here again. It must have been part of the same plan that meant we had to have randomly-allocated hutches.

And one more time

Just came from a section meeting where I found out where the credenzas from yesterday ended up - a couple of guys had just been relocated into an open-plan area with no storage space, so one of them siezed the credenzas.

Now he's being told he has to give them up, because even though no-one else seems to want them, whoever ordered them in the first place didn't order them for him.

And again

More delivery men turn up.

"This the Project Office?"

We look around the interior of our shed. "Kind of."

"You expecting a photocopier?"

More looks exchanged. "Uh... yeah?"

"Cool. We'll bring it in."

More furniture wars

There's now a credenza bonanza, with the Haves trying desperately to offload them onto the Have Nots.

PMv2 is weeping hysterically in his corner.

Enthusiasm

The project manager takes his leave for the afternoon, citing having to go into the main buidling "for some strategic planning. For the project office."

As he wanders out the door, the words "Waste of bloody time..." drift in on the breeze.

Addendum to last item.

And now there's a sudden flurry of e-mails as the project manager goes through his Inbox and begins assigning tasks that he's decided are now operational rather than project issues.

Bastard.

Project Death Spiral latest

PMv2 has just announced via e-mail (which I'm sure he timed so it would be sent after he'd left The Shed) that my minion and I "will be taking the lead on this project and as consequence will be responsible for the interface with the business". In other words, he's decided we're going to go straight from project status to operational status without actually finishing the project.

This seems to be the Project Office's response to concerns at the problems Death Spiral has been experiencing. By announcing that everything's ready (at least as far as they're concerned) they don't need to deal with things like it being incorrectly scoped or managed for most of its duration, and anything that goes wrong from this point on is an operational issue and not their problem.

Neither welcome, nor surprising..

Definite Cow-orker Potential

My minion is on the phone telling someone about having a cyst removed last week. Rather than sticking to a broad, workplace-friendly overview, the conversation so far has expaned to include "urethra", "bowels" and other associated words.

Not that I'm particularly squeamish, but there are things about my workmates internal organs that I don't need to know...

Err... when did I start running Project Death Spiral? And if I'm not running it, why is everyone asking me what to do?

Disasters 'R Us revisited

And on top of everything else, they're going to be using Lotus Notes.

Disasters 'R Us

After some particularly nasty storms a couple of years ago, the City Council announced the construction of a Disaster Co-ordination Centre in order to deal with future emergencies. This was due for completion at the end of last year.

There were a couple of basic flaws in the plan to begin with - one was that the centre, designed to be manned by two dozen phone and computer operators during emergencies, was only going to use volunteers. That by itself raises a few problems (what if no volunteers show up, access to secured systems/facilities, etc), but the real fun began once the Engineering division got into the act.

They looked at their million-dollar budget, went "Woo-hoo!" and began designing a building without worrying about any of the piddly little details such as infrastructure, communications, planning, and so on. Ninety percent of the budget later (and six months past the completion date), the result is a functionally complete but operationally useless building. When it was pointed out to Engineering that there needed to be some money left to provide something more than just a building, they compromised by offering to tell whoever submitted a tender that they needed to bring the price in a couple of hundred thousand dollars lower. Expect a quality construction project.

The centre was conceived as having direct lines of communciation with emergency services on dedicated landlines. But then money started getting tight, and they fell back on Plan B - a microwave link. The problem with that was that the Disaster Centre site had no useful line-of-sight anywhere, and negotiations were carried out with a developer to allow Council to install a microwave dish on top of a building the developer was seeking approval for. The developer agreed, everyone was happy ... and then the Cuty Council approved construction of an even taller building between the Disaster Centre and the building with the microwave dish. Presumably negotiations with this second developer haven't been carried out in quite the same spirit of cooperation, as Council is now trying to ask a local hospital very nicely if they can install, free of charge, a microwave dish on the hospital roof.

Presumably this is a precursor to approving another high-rise between the Disaster Centre and the hospital.

In the latest development, Council has "found" another half-million dollars in its budget to get the Centre back on track (Engineeering: "Woo-hoo!"), although tentative queries to infrastructure vendors have been met with "That won't even cover the cost of the materials we'll need".

So, to summarise, the plan to date is for a hollow shell of a building manned by volunteers, with no means of communication with the outside world.

"But wait!" as they say in the classics, "that's not all!"

The Disaster Centre has no UPS installed because it would cost money, and because "we already have a generator". During yesterday's flooding, they lost power and the generator failed. The solution was going to be to hire another generator, but the roads being cut by floodwaters put something of a crimp in that plan.

And back here, the project office enjoys a luxurious space on the top floor of the main building. Their ceiling leaked like a sieve, and one desk in particular suffered a steady stream of water that soaked the PC and drowned the paperwork.

The desk belonged to the project manager for the Disaster Centre.

Retards.

I never realised until now just how easy it is to "accidentally" insult someone with a simple slip when typing with your off-hand.

"Retards." instead of "Regards,".

Heh.

Wet Wet Wet

The torrential rain that flooded most of this region yesterday has gone, but there's still a god-awful amount of water around the place. Including indoors. Corridors in the main building are decorated with bins, buckets and large wet patches on the carpet every couple of metres (with several sodden, collapsed ceiling panels lying arounf for good measure), and while it looks like while The Shed's roof held up, the walls leaked like a Cow-orker on a phone call.

Water seeped into the walls, ran down and then oozed through the carpet across the floor. The carpet around my desk is actually squelching underfoot, and I'm expecting a bumper crop of carpet mold over the next couple of days.

"Nice shag. Interesting colours."

"That's no shag."

No animals were harmed.

The staff canteen here has a choice of two kinds of pie - "meat" or "flavoured". The implications are disturbing no matter how you turn this around

Status Report

A Project Manager here doesn't actually manage the project. Instead they demand high-level status reports ("Don't tell me the details!") and insist on extra meetings when the schedule slips (which means preparing more reports, for which they don't want to hear the details).

The Project Team Leader is the poor unfortunate who gets to deal with the actual running of the project - managing resources, scope, activities etc. But because they're not officially called a Project Manager they're not allowed to talk to stakeholders without going through the Project Manager, who is supposed to act as the communication channel between the project and its stakeholders. I'm not allowed to be a project manager because I'm not part of the Project Management Office, but because I'm the one who'll be carrying on many of these tasks after the project ends, the Project Office hasn't quite worked out whether I'm allowed to talk to people or not.

What we have at the moment is an interim Project Manager, in place of the original PM who's had to concentrate on other work at the moment (while still acting as a kind of supervising PM). The interim PM is a contractor between projects - he was brought in to manage the creation of the disaster coordination centre, but came on after most of the budget had already been spent on a building with no IT infrastructure (apparently they didn't see the need for a project plan and simply ran amuck on construction until they ran out of cash. So the disaster part of that project seems to be working out okay). The interim PM is with us for another three weeks, I think, at which point we either get another PM, the original one comes back, or ... well, I don't know, really. I don't think anyone else does, either, at this point.

Because no new team leader has been appointed since the last one resigned, the interim PM and I have split the team leader responsibilities. I'm looking after day-to-day activities and am the nominal supervisor of the three temporary and one permanent staff member assigned to the project. The interim PM looks after the higher-level stuff and, because he's an official project manager, he's also allowed to talk to people outside of the project. In fact he more or less has to deal with the high-level stuff, because he has no background whatsoever in this field. And I'm still learning how this place operates.

It's a little bit like the blind leading the blind at times - I'm hoping we'll reach a one-eyed-man/Kingdom of the Blind equilibrium sometime soon, though. All we need to do is find the one-eyed man.

Project Death Spiral: Attack of The Hutches

Yesterday morning the rest of the desks arrived for The Shed. We're not entirely sure why we need so many desks in here - current thought is divided between the Infinite Monkeys Theory, and the Project Office simply making sure they spend all their money before the end of the financial year. I suspect the latter, if only because the Infinite Monkeys scenario is too elegant a solution.

The original layout would have given a Workplace Health & Safety person a fit, with a little less than two feet of clearance in which to move between desks. Then again there's a lot of things about the The Shed that would do that. Like the fact that it's a deathtrap in the event of a fire, for instance.

We thought that was the end of it when we all went home yesterday. This morning we came in and discovered the Hutch Fairy had paid a visit overnight, arbitrarily gifting six lucky people with hutches to go on the desks. One of the desks has no-one sitting at it, another is only used intermittently, and the remaining four were given to a random selection of staff members. Other desks were ignored entirely. I have no hutch, for instance, although I've received several offers of one throughout the day.

The place looks even more like a mini-labyrinth than before, with the PMv2 now hidden from the world behind his hutch, and the remainder of The Shed's occupants now invisible from the doorway. PMv1 has been getting progressively more claustrophobic as the day's worn on (partly because he's protesting about the hutches by piling junk on top of his), but we've been ordered to leave the hutches alone and not try to move them elsewhere. The Project Office paid for these hutches, and we're damn well going to appreciate them.

Besides, we're told, the hutches are part of The Plan, and The Plan cannot be changed.

I fear the Project Office's plan.

Project Death Spiral

There's a meeting this afternoon for the eight-member Project Death Spiral Steering Committee. I see we're booked into a room with seating capacity for six, three of whom will be delivering reports.

It's been a while since I've seen such blatant Applied Cynicism.

And the three temps have pointed out that their contracts expire today... The team leader had been trying to get them extended for another 12 weeks, but no-one from the Project Office would confirm for him whether this was going to happen or not.

The Shed could be a very quiet place in the very near future...

The lesser of two weevils

I've been asked what's worse: the Cow-orker, or Project Death Spiral.

And I think I have to answer: Project Death Spiral.

I know, I know, it sounds difficult to believe. But the only saving grace I can see for the project is that it's short-term (although not as short-term as it was apparently predicted to be). But while the Cow-orker seemed to have the capacity to go on forever, she wasn't as actively malicious, vindictive or unethical in the way that the project culture here seems to be.

t's possible that pain has dulled the pain somewhat - it has been several months since I had to work with her full-time in close proximity. But most of the time she really was just in a state of berserker stupidity and had no real sense of what she was doing to the people around her.

Kind of like having Godzilla in the next cubicle.

Gah.

Well, that was really unpleasant... Just attended another bloody meeting with the past and present project managers (PMv1 and PMv2, for future references) and it seemed like every second comment on the status of the project was aimed at the departed team leader to affirm his evil and disruptive influence on the project.

Who could have known that the first six months of the project when most of the schedule slippage occurred was really such a golden age of achievement and direction? Maybe this is one of the hidden perks of being full-time staff (like the first team leader) rather than a contractor (like the second).

On the plus side, this seems to imply there's a realistic chance I can make a complete mess of things and get away with it as long as I smile nicely at people while I'm at it.

Project Death Spiral latest

And after the latest round of meetings, I'm now the new team leader for Project Death Spiral.

But no-one's calling me that officially because the project has lost the last two people to hold that title.

And, possibly, because they might then have to pay me more money. As it is, the Project Office are pre-emptively citing the infamous "other duties as required" clause, and arguing that "this is the kind of thing you might be doing when you're job actually starts".

Reviewing the situation

I have to confess that I'm developing a few reservations about staying here long-term after the last couple of weeks after watching recent efforts to make the departing Project Team Leader take the blame for things that were going wrong months before he was even hired.

Leaving aside the ethics of the situation, common sense would suggest that if you're going to start including "prepare scapegoat" as a project objective, you should at least be more subtle than asking someone to commit to completing in two weeks an activity that was originally scheduled to take 82 days. Otherwise the person you're trying to scapegoat may start getting suspicious.

It's been suggested that the people in charge are either untrained or just plain daft.

My money's on daft. All the Project Office people I've spoken to seem to have a reasonably good idea of what they should be doing (and an even clearer idea of what everyone else should be doing), but they seem happier working in a culture where they get to call all the shots without taking any personal responsibility (which tends to lend weight to the idea that "people" actually encompasses both actual humans and bald apes with a talent for mimicry).

Project Death Spiral continues

And the three temps have pointed out that their contracts expire today. The team leader had been trying to get them extended for another 12 weeks, but no-one from the Project Office would confirm for him whether this was going to happen or not.

The Shed could be a very quiet place in the very near future.

Not completely surprising...

The project team leader has just given two weeks' notice in response to moves towards making him the official scapegoat for things that happened before he came on to the project.

Excrement, meet Fan...

Welcome to Project Death Spiral

Perhaps it was a little premature of me to be joking about the Team Leader looking wild-eyed earlier this week. Having spent most of the day being asked to justify everything he does (and why everything that happens on the project takes time rather than being willed into existence instantly), the last straw seemed to come late this afternoon when he was asked to justify a meeting with the organisation's designated software supplier. He's now decided to adhere rigidly to the job description he was contracted to do, rather than continue to go above and beyond in getting the project back on the schedule it had slipped from before he came on the scene and for which he's being continually asked to account.

It would be an exaggeration to say that people are already hunting for a scapegoat, but it certainly makes the previous project manager's question earlier this week ("Could I carry the project through to its conclusion, or would I need a project manager to do that?") seem even more ominous than it did at the time.

Things had actually seemed slightly encouraging yesterday when I met the new project manager and found him willing to take a more hands-on approach than his predecessor. He also seemed interested in moving away from the traditional City Council definition of a project manager (i.e. someone who fills the PHB role in a project) and towards the conventional sense where he actually manages the project.

Despite that, his efforts to make sure the team leader doesn't overstep his bounds by actually talking directly to people and therby breaking the chain of command are a little worrisome.

Should be interesting to see what the climate's like come Monday.

The server rooms in the basement are actually below the flood level of the river that runs fifty metres from our door.

This came to light when people were investigating the recent flooding of the basement caused when The Shed was finally connected to running water. The water supply for The Shed's sink was connected to the baement's decommissioned fire-sprinkler system, which hadn't been closed off properly. When water was finally supplied to The Shed, water was also supplied in firehose quantities to the basement.

Much kicking and covering of butts is now occurring in the main building.

Abandon ship

The Project Manager abandoned us today and a new one took his place. With the flight of the original Project Team Leader several weeks ago, this now means that the people who've been on this project the longest are the three temps who started in March. In fact getting anyone to stick around the project for any length of time seems to be a real challenge.

Come to think of it, the current Team Leader has been looking a little wild-eyed lately...

Should sound familiar to a few people

The Project Team Leader and I express some dissatisfaction about a couple of the local systems. The response: "Don't knock it until you've spent six million dollars trying to get it to work."

Win some, lose some

Less than a week ago we managed to get approval to have a lock installed on the single office in The Shed so that we could store documents securely without constantly having to go in and out of the main building all the time.

Today workmen came in and removed the office's walls and door.

Hate Mail

The Cow-orker news has just been broken to my workmates and the first hate-mail has hit my Inbox.

Shifting goalposts

Talk about moving the goalposts. The Project Team Leader and I just had a meeting with the Project Manager (who has the annoying habit of insisting that he doesn't want to hear about the fine detail, even though most of the questions he's asking hinge on the fine detail we're struggling with) and he managed to undercut much of what the two of us see as being the critical issues. Annoyingly, he's also expecting us to know about decisions that were made prior to either of us joining the project that no-one's actually relayed to us.

More annoyingly still, I've been on the project for two weeks, the PTL has been on for only three weeks longer than that, and we're the ones being asked to explain why a project that's been running since mid-late last year is running one month behind schedule. And (like a bad Dilbert strip) we have to increase the frequency of meetings and status reports to ensure that the project is able to get back on schedule.

As we talk to more people throughout the day, it becomes increasingly clear that the Project Manager has been giving very selective information to a lot of people, so that no-one quite knows the status of anything. Clearly he's practising a divide-and-conquer strategy, but it's not quite clear who he's trying to conquer.

No going back now.

Just had an e-mail from the original Cow-orker. Rather than summarise, here it is:

You're not going to believe what has happened here. I went to see [current section head] on Friday morning about some details for the wireless launch that's haooeneing tomorrow ... and she had [the Crazy Man] in her office. Turns out the reason [the Crazy Man] took so long to advertise your position is that apparently despite [previous section head's] promises to me my current job has been classified at a 4 [a lower pay level].

Although it's a safe guess this is simply the lifeline the Crazy Man has latched onto to justify not having done anything about replacing me in the last six weeks. Especially as he's been heard saying that he didn't want the Cow-orker back under him.

They think they might be able to push it to a 5 [not quote as low a level, but still lower than what she's getting now] and [the Crazy Man] wanted to give me the option of going back.

Mr Path-of-Least-Resistance strikes again.

They both dropped this on me at about 11.30am on Friday, Seemed to me that I didn't really have much of a choice. I mean I'm a 6 (which I keep if I go back) or I can choose to apply for the new job (ie. I might not get it) and take the possible 5.

The Marketing Shrew doesn't like working with the Cow-orker, largely because the Cow-orker keeps wanting to do things and has ideas. Ideas upset the Marketing Shrew's way of doing things which, historically, has been to smile nicely, wear low-cut dresses and take the credit for everything.

It was a no brainer from my point of view.

Yes, well, it wouldn't be the first time that phrase has been used in conjunction with the Cow-orker's decision-making abilities...

So, I'm now officially back in [my old unit]. I'm thinking I'm kinda lucky you got that job now.

I wonder if my former workmates will share her point of view. One of their great fears when I left was that she'd return...

Funny how life works isn't it.

Hysterical. I wish I could see everyone's faces when they learn she's coming back down from Marketing.

The potential for chaos in my old workplace is enormous. Since the reogranisation that put us under the Crazy Man, there's no direct manager over the unit (and won't be until the Crazy Man writes a position description that's actually likely to get approved - it's been a work-in-progress for about two years or more), so she's essentially coming back to a role where she's going to be self-directing.

My bridges with my old job haven't been burned so much as subjected to orbital bombardment.

The Coup

The Project Office has siezed control of all the sheds, which came as a surprise to my section, who were planning on using my project's new shed to house some of their staff while their area inside the main building was being refurbished.

And now today's sport:

Minion fighting. My minion won, the other one fled The Shed, and then fled work entirely.

This suggests I should probably avoid making my minion angry.

Random Monday-ness

My minion continues to establish her Cow-orker credentials by singing along with the radio. Listening to breakfast radio in the first place doesn't help her cause any, either. And while the Project Team Leader and I were having a deskside meeting she was busy on an extended personal call that mysteriously ended as soon as our discussion did. Maybe the interview panel did find the website after all...

Heating in The Shed has been turned on to counteract the chill. Will be interested to see if people actually turn the heating off as the day warms, or whether they'll complain about the hear and turn their own air-conditioners on to let the heaters and the air-conditioning battle it out.

Just another glorious day in the corps...

"I see Cow-orkers..."

"Hi, switchboard? There's a problem with my phone extension - the number on the handset is also assigned to someone in the main building. Can I get an extension that works?"

"Let me just test your current number and see what happens ... hmm, it's engaged. Yes, it sounds like there is a problem there."

The number I was calling from was engaged. What are the odds?

The life of luxury

Currently working in The Shed, an ageing and dubious-looking demountable that seems to have taken root in decades past. Anyone working on a project gets put in The Shed for the duration of the project (except Project Managers, who occupy the top floor of the main building and enjoy sweeping views of the river, Chevron Island and Surfers. Typical, really...).

Banishment to The Shed is supposed to be to prevent project people from being dragged away for operational work, but in reality tends to feel like you can't come back inside until you Get It Right.

On the bright side, when I do enter the main building, at least I'm allowed up on the furniture.

Day One

Arrived to find nothing apparently working. Marvin the Paranoid Security Officer explained that I couldn't get my security pass:

"Nothing's working today. Typical. Can't even take ID photos without the computer rejecting them. All the ones I took this morning - gone. And there are alarms going off all over the building, but can I get anyone to do anything about them? Not a sausage. You could try coming back later but, honestly, things probably won't be working any better then, either. Mondays? Don't talk to me about Mondays..."

The forms that were supposed to have been put through to set me up with computer, network and internet access haven't been, either. I can see this is going to be a productive start to things.

Slappable Clients II

"I ordered multiple licenses, but I only received one CD set."

"You only ordered one CD set."

"My order says 'media required'."

"It does. And media was supplied. You didn't say you wanted multiple copies."

"I need multiple copies! This will only work the way I want it to if I have multiple copies!"

"You can make multiple copies - the license allows you to do that."

"But I want original multiple copies! I don't want to make my own copies!"

"I can order another more copies in for you, then, but you'll need to pay for them."

Direct quote: "The quote I received from Symantec includes the media. I'm not prepared to pay for further media. The nature of the product is such that the CD forms part of the solution as it is required for the bare metal recovery. I'm happy to take this up with Symantec if you wish. The original order said '(must include media)' and for this product means a CD for each licence.

I'm sure he's mistaken, so I call Symantec. They agree that using the software the way he wants to will need one CD per license. They also agree that he can make his own copies, or pay for additional copies of original media, and seem a little puzzled as to what the problem is.

I enlighten my contact at Symantec by reading back the client's message. I get as far as "I'm not prepared to pay for further media" when the other end of the line explodes with laughter, followed by "Well I've got news for them - there's a lot of things we don't want to pay for either!" before being cut off by further eruptions of laughter.

I now have to translate this into less inflammatory terms and relay it to the client.