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It's death by a thousand tiny procedural cuts. There's thousands of users, dozens of processes and as many external dependencies. Money is always subject to wh

It's death by a thousand tiny procedural cuts. There's thousands of users, dozens of processes and as many external dependencies. Money is always subject to whomever got elected last November and a great many people resent you. They're 57, been working with the previous system since the mid 80s and they like it dammit. They see the writing on the wall and the mainframe operator or data entry specialist job they have is a goner. Shy of a full pension too. Or the prima Donna department that always got their way is blue balling the analysts the whole way through because they don't own this anymore. Problems in this type of projects are all people and processes. I also work in Healthcare IT on the vendor side and I see projects that get shit done and project that die. It's about management.

spiritplumber 12y ago
Yep, I can confirm that. My strategy is to tell people "I am going to make it work and you are going to either help me, or watch helplessly as I make it work without you and make you look like an idiot". It helps to take assertions like "you cannot do that" literally, even though they tend to be said to mean "you may not do that" or "you should not do that", and prove that you can in fact, do that all you like because there are no laws of physics preventing it. It has caused a few surreal meetings, like the time when a guy did a 40 minute long presentation on "I need more people and more money in my workgroup to make this work" while the first batch of completed, working, tested production units (built by me and one other guy after we got sick of the BS, I even paid for the manufacturing out of pocket) was in the middle of the conference table. Imagine a half dozen people trying to ignore what was literally in front of their eyes. Another time it also has caused me to escort a security guard out of the building because he was being disruptive. He had been told to escort me out of the building, grabbed me without asking my permission, and found himself in a headlock, then was informed that if he did want to fight me, he was welcome to. Then I got back inside and finished my business. Sometimes you just have to say "full speed ahead and damn the torpedos", or nothing gets done. (My father's rule of fights: Never hit first, always hit last)
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  I love how most of my comments that convey the message "Sometimes you have to push back when you are pushed" or "sometimes the job is more important than people's egos" get downvoted.

spiritplumber 12y ago

Yep, I can confirm that. My strategy is to tell people "I am going to make it work and you are going to either help me, or watch helplessly as I make it work without you and make you look like an idiot". It helps to take assertions like "you cannot do that" literally, even though they tend to be said to mean "you may not do that" or "you should not do that", and prove that you can in fact, do that all you like because there are no laws of physics preventing it. It has caused a few surreal meetings, like the time when a guy did a 40 minute long presentation on "I need more people and more money in my workgroup to make this work" while the first batch of completed, working, tested production units (built by me and one other guy after we got sick of the BS, I even paid for the manufacturing out of pocket) was in the middle of the conference table. Imagine a half dozen people trying to ignore what was literally in front of their eyes. Another time it also has caused me to escort a security guard out of the building because he was being disruptive. He had been told to escort me out of the building, grabbed me without asking my permission, and found himself in a headlock, then was informed that if he did want to fight me, he was welcome to. Then I got back inside and finished my business. Sometimes you just have to say "full speed ahead and damn the torpedos", or nothing gets done. (My father's rule of fights: Never hit first, always hit last)

spiritplumber 12y ago
I love how most of my comments that convey the message "Sometimes you have to push back when you are pushed" or "sometimes the job is more important than people's egos" get downvoted.