elainegrey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elainegrey) wrote2011-04-13 12:56 pm
elainegrey) wrote2011-04-13 12:56 pm
Weep
I'm sure i'll get through this fine, but i just need to *feel* for a moment the frustration that my work email is delivering to me.
On one hand there is the message that i and my team are just a small bit of a huge machine and we must submit to other's decisions with little input and certainly no consensus discussion. The other is that we're in independent control over all aspects of our functioning.
I've been loosely referring to this machine as Project in contrast to another thing i call Product, but really, that's not good enough.
My team works on identity management code, trying to build an infrastructure which will allow simultaneous compatibility with the broad spectrum of identity services our customers use and which will support our customers by minimizing the number of different ways they identify themselves to us.
It's a big long hard project, with specialized domain knowledge and details out the wazoo, and a huge barrier in communicating to people who just want the little login+password box to work. ("How hard can it be?")
Our project started as part of The Confederation of Clouds. Some parts of our work can be considered discreet and single clouds in the larger confederation of clouds. That would be something like a profile page at a website. But much of our work connects the clouds together so when you go from the profile page to a page where you author something to a page where you search for something, you experience it as seamless -- even though you're actually talking to many different clouds.
I and my boss don't report to any one in the Confederation of Clouds portfolio.
We used to be part of a small Portfolio that was an infrastructure-like portfolio. But since only a few things in that portfolio made money and many other were infrastructure-like, they closed that portfolio and moved the business director so that he reports to the business director of the Confederation of Clouds portfolio.
Fortunately my boss did not get moved so that he would report to Flaky Guy, the engineering directory of the Confederation of Clouds portfolio. I don't even want to think what that alternative universe looks like.
Instead, my boss now reports to the director of The Big Cloud. Now, just like how we work to make a user experience the confederacy of clouds as one place, we work to make the user experience the Confederacy of Clouds PLUS the Big Cloud one place. So it's not an insane choice.
Even though The Confederacy of Clouds and The Big Cloud are built by the same company, the cultures are very different. The Confederacy of Clouds is all new software, very little management hierarchy, strong software architecture leadership, global composition; the Big Cloud a hodgepodge of systems glued together over time, strong management hierarchy and process discipline, barely any architecture leadership, and mostly a one location composition.
My boss's boss, Director of the Big Cloud, wants our Identity Management system to be more separate from the Confederacy of Clouds. Thing is, we're built on top of other infrastructure components that are part of the Confederacy.
Friday, i'm being called to a meeting where people in the Big Cloud want to discuss the difference in how our Identity Management stuff is built with how Big Cloud is built: but really, it's a question of that we can't answer. We're built the way Confederacy units are built.
Meanwhile the one of the Confederacy leads (in Project Management) has decided that all of the Confederacy projects will be in one great Project Union in the task tracking system.
On one hand there is the message that i and my team are just a small bit of a huge machine and we must submit to other's decisions with little input and certainly no consensus discussion. The other is that we're in independent control over all aspects of our functioning.
I've been loosely referring to this machine as Project in contrast to another thing i call Product, but really, that's not good enough.
My team works on identity management code, trying to build an infrastructure which will allow simultaneous compatibility with the broad spectrum of identity services our customers use and which will support our customers by minimizing the number of different ways they identify themselves to us.
It's a big long hard project, with specialized domain knowledge and details out the wazoo, and a huge barrier in communicating to people who just want the little login+password box to work. ("How hard can it be?")
Our project started as part of The Confederation of Clouds. Some parts of our work can be considered discreet and single clouds in the larger confederation of clouds. That would be something like a profile page at a website. But much of our work connects the clouds together so when you go from the profile page to a page where you author something to a page where you search for something, you experience it as seamless -- even though you're actually talking to many different clouds.
I and my boss don't report to any one in the Confederation of Clouds portfolio.
We used to be part of a small Portfolio that was an infrastructure-like portfolio. But since only a few things in that portfolio made money and many other were infrastructure-like, they closed that portfolio and moved the business director so that he reports to the business director of the Confederation of Clouds portfolio.
Fortunately my boss did not get moved so that he would report to Flaky Guy, the engineering directory of the Confederation of Clouds portfolio. I don't even want to think what that alternative universe looks like.
Instead, my boss now reports to the director of The Big Cloud. Now, just like how we work to make a user experience the confederacy of clouds as one place, we work to make the user experience the Confederacy of Clouds PLUS the Big Cloud one place. So it's not an insane choice.
Even though The Confederacy of Clouds and The Big Cloud are built by the same company, the cultures are very different. The Confederacy of Clouds is all new software, very little management hierarchy, strong software architecture leadership, global composition; the Big Cloud a hodgepodge of systems glued together over time, strong management hierarchy and process discipline, barely any architecture leadership, and mostly a one location composition.
My boss's boss, Director of the Big Cloud, wants our Identity Management system to be more separate from the Confederacy of Clouds. Thing is, we're built on top of other infrastructure components that are part of the Confederacy.
Friday, i'm being called to a meeting where people in the Big Cloud want to discuss the difference in how our Identity Management stuff is built with how Big Cloud is built: but really, it's a question of that we can't answer. We're built the way Confederacy units are built.
Meanwhile the one of the Confederacy leads (in Project Management) has decided that all of the Confederacy projects will be in one great Project Union in the task tracking system.