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In today's "I can't believe how flaky Flaky Guy is but now i see how he comes up with the defense of some of the flaky behavior:"
Several weeks ago there was an edict: on the next iteration we would switch to four week iterations. I spent some time talking to Flaky Guy about the reason why there was an extension. He explained that we would have our Soft Freeze on the Friday of the third week, the Hard freeze on the Monday of the fourth week, and the release on Tuesday. The rest of the week would be spent "hardening." Apparently this would have nothing to do with the actual code, so you can freeze and release before hardening.
I did not see any notice going out that the pattern of the freezes would change. I can imagine a developer assuming that the last week of the four week iteration would be the same as the last week of the three week iteration. I presumed that Flaky Guy was in touch with all the teams, though, communicating that we should reference the obscure wiki page with the schedule as he did with me.
Revelation 1:
Today, during our noon Eastern/9am Pacific call, i noted that some of my team would like to hear from him what was expected as part of the hardening.[1] Well, yes, he said. He has an email ready to send out, but didn't want to send it out too early because people would forget. There's so much email and it would just be another email from him, etc. So he'd waited. "Ah," i said, thinking, "That's why you *resend* an announcement a day or two before the deadline." I also marveled that he wants to minimize email containing important communication, but thinks nothing of replying with, "Thank You" to one person, cc'ing fifty. He's going to send the email today he assured me. Just in time then, i probably replied, since tomorrow is the soft freeze.
Revelation 2:
Three hours later Flaky Guy calls back. What would i think, if just this once, since it's the first four week iteration, we moved the soft freeze to Monday? It wasn't going to disrupt us, since we would be trying to check in for tomorrow, and we were going to be in planning meetings all Monday. Why the change? Well, the Europeans were going to panic when they got this email, it's been bank holidays and a wedding in England, and they would have all forgotten that he'd said something. And it would just be better if he could "give a little now to take a little later."
My guess: he hasn't told any of the tech leads in Europe.
Revelation 3:
At 8 pm Eastern, there was still no email.
It's really quite amazing to work with other folks from the Ohio office of the Whale. Flaky Guy and the VP from Hell are both held in essentially contempt. Once a week i'm part of a meeting where five other people try to get Flaky Guy to follow through on commitments he's made.
I am trying hard not to get too demoralized and i did bounce back from yesterday's low.
Then i got the notice that the VP is visiting next week and wants to meet with me on Wednesday (as well as other folks from our office in bunches).
I suppose i should anticipate the same reaction i had last year and pencil in a melt-down.
[1] Were i on my team, and i heard Elaine give the explanation i'd gave, i'd choose to assume Elaine had misunderstood, because otherwise it means the Flaky Guy has evinced an even more flaky behavior patten than one would like to expect. The disbelief certain folks greet me with is reasonable: i still have a hard time understanding what developers are supposed to be doing the last week of the iteration if the code has already been released.
Background:
We have been working in three week iterations. During week three the work wraps up: on Wednesday there is a "soft freeze" of the code, Thursday is the "hard freeze," and Friday is the release.Several weeks ago there was an edict: on the next iteration we would switch to four week iterations. I spent some time talking to Flaky Guy about the reason why there was an extension. He explained that we would have our Soft Freeze on the Friday of the third week, the Hard freeze on the Monday of the fourth week, and the release on Tuesday. The rest of the week would be spent "hardening." Apparently this would have nothing to do with the actual code, so you can freeze and release before hardening.
I did not see any notice going out that the pattern of the freezes would change. I can imagine a developer assuming that the last week of the four week iteration would be the same as the last week of the three week iteration. I presumed that Flaky Guy was in touch with all the teams, though, communicating that we should reference the obscure wiki page with the schedule as he did with me.
Revelation 1:
Today, during our noon Eastern/9am Pacific call, i noted that some of my team would like to hear from him what was expected as part of the hardening.[1] Well, yes, he said. He has an email ready to send out, but didn't want to send it out too early because people would forget. There's so much email and it would just be another email from him, etc. So he'd waited. "Ah," i said, thinking, "That's why you *resend* an announcement a day or two before the deadline." I also marveled that he wants to minimize email containing important communication, but thinks nothing of replying with, "Thank You" to one person, cc'ing fifty. He's going to send the email today he assured me. Just in time then, i probably replied, since tomorrow is the soft freeze.
Revelation 2:
Three hours later Flaky Guy calls back. What would i think, if just this once, since it's the first four week iteration, we moved the soft freeze to Monday? It wasn't going to disrupt us, since we would be trying to check in for tomorrow, and we were going to be in planning meetings all Monday. Why the change? Well, the Europeans were going to panic when they got this email, it's been bank holidays and a wedding in England, and they would have all forgotten that he'd said something. And it would just be better if he could "give a little now to take a little later."
My guess: he hasn't told any of the tech leads in Europe.
Revelation 3:
At 8 pm Eastern, there was still no email.
It's really quite amazing to work with other folks from the Ohio office of the Whale. Flaky Guy and the VP from Hell are both held in essentially contempt. Once a week i'm part of a meeting where five other people try to get Flaky Guy to follow through on commitments he's made.
I am trying hard not to get too demoralized and i did bounce back from yesterday's low.
Then i got the notice that the VP is visiting next week and wants to meet with me on Wednesday (as well as other folks from our office in bunches).
I suppose i should anticipate the same reaction i had last year and pencil in a melt-down.
[1] Were i on my team, and i heard Elaine give the explanation i'd gave, i'd choose to assume Elaine had misunderstood, because otherwise it means the Flaky Guy has evinced an even more flaky behavior patten than one would like to expect. The disbelief certain folks greet me with is reasonable: i still have a hard time understanding what developers are supposed to be doing the last week of the iteration if the code has already been released.
no subject
My boss and i spend the occasional conversation discussing when the executive layer of management will go through the purge, particularly the VP. My boss has been saying "soon." I felt he had this whole fiscal year that ends in July as an excuse that he was still setting things "right." For example, we just got the training we need for the new process. So he's had "excuses" for a while. It's this next fiscal year when i think the excuses will run out.
We had a visit from the president of the company a month or so ago. Colleagues on my staff mentioned the absence of technical leadership.
When the VP goes, then i think there's a chance that Flaky Guy will be relegated to some small fiefdom.