The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

PiisAWheeL · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Just to piss off the frist kiddies!

Addendum (2012-01-31 10:40): On a more serious note... I think Doug would have had a terrible accident of some sort on his way to work one day :)

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

And this is why it's good to be a manager who was a developer and to listen to what your devs say.

Then, we fire people like Doug.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

It also draws something far more sinister: project managers

Indeed.

who want to steal that glory for themselves.

But you repeat yourself.

Project Managers are TRWTF, 9.7 times out of 10.

I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:

"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

The position of project manager was originally created to run the Manhattan Project. From the success there, it migrated into business. Point being, if you're build the bomb, or some other complex project involving several managers (or directors), you're going to need someone whose sole job is to keep up with the overall status of the project, and to ensure that resources (including people) don't get diverted to competing priorities without anyone considering what that means.

But for a single team of four people?

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

It sounds like Josh has a chip on his shoulder and is the real glory hog in this story. Just because you don't understand industry best practices doesn't mean they are meaningless or that the person enforcing them is stupid. The original developers were flexible enough to adapt to the contractor's style, but the contractors couldn't take being managed properly by a real project manager. That is TRWTF!

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

One incompetent manager can easily undo the work of a hundred competent employees.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Where I work, we have 4 project managers, 2 product owners, 3 team managers, 8 business analysts, 2 teams of 3 developers and a QA. That is the only way for things to be accomplished properly.

frits · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Doug sounds like a real quier.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

TRWTF is TFS

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

In Soviet Russia, the project manages you!

CAPTCHA: opto (root): this is not the optomum work environment.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Well, if Dough was from the client side, maybe they wanted to make sure the project failed, in order to avoid some payments, or because of internal battles.

operagost · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Looks like Nagesh took an English class and renamed himself "Paul Neumann".

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Paul Neumann:
It sounds like Josh has a chip on his shoulder and is the real glory hog in this story. Just because you don't understand industry best practices doesn't mean they are meaningless or that the person enforcing them is stupid. The original developers were flexible enough to adapt to the contractor's style, but the contractors couldn't take being managed properly by a real project manager. That is TRWTF!

Meh, 2/10. You might get a few bites...

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Paul Neumann:
Where I work, we have 4 project managers, 2 product owners, 3 team managers, 8 business analysts, 2 teams of 3 developers and a QA. That is the only way for things to be accomplished properly.

You work for the Greek government too?!

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

An Old Hacker:
The position of project manager was originally created to run the Manhattan Project.

The same Manhattan Project that eventually exploded several times, with each explosion causing more and more destruction?

Obviously a Project Manager was involved.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Paul Neumann:
Where I work, we have 4 project managers, 2 product owners, 3 team managers, 8 business analysts, 2 teams of 3 developers and a QA. That is the only way for things to be accomplished properly.

And when the costs start getting too bloated, cut the developers. Oh, and QA? That's a joke, right?

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Fred:
I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:
"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1

Vex not the geeks, lest ye be replaced by a seven line script.

PiisAWheeL · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Fred:
It also draws something far more sinister: project managers
Indeed.
who want to steal that glory for themselves.
But you repeat yourself.
Project Managers are TRWTF, 9.7 times out of 10.

I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:

"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1

I like how you are billing for 4 lines of white-space ;)

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
Fred:
It also draws something far more sinister: project managers
Indeed.
who want to steal that glory for themselves.
But you repeat yourself.
Project Managers are TRWTF, 9.7 times out of 10.

I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:

"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1
I like how you are billing for 4 lines of white-space ;)

That reminded me of a few times I heard some bozo devs (especially conducting job interviews) brag about their app, like: "this app has 20 thousand lines of code, you know" (like, that's a measure of anything related to features or quality).

PiisAWheeL · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

luptatum:
PiisAWheeL:
Fred:
It also draws something far more sinister: project managers
Indeed.
who want to steal that glory for themselves.
But you repeat yourself.
Project Managers are TRWTF, 9.7 times out of 10.

I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:

"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1
I like how you are billing for 4 lines of white-space ;)
That reminded me of a few times I heard some bozo devs (especially conducting job interviews) brag about their app, like: "this app has 20 thousand lines of code, you know" (like, that's a measure of anything related to features or quality).

No, but it is a pretty good measure of what the invoice looks like.

It also just occured to me that your 7 line function doesn't accept any input... well played :)

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

The size of the application and number of people on the team gives a good idea of how large a project a developer has experience working with. As an interviewer, I'm very interested to know that. As a developer, I want people to know it if I single-handedly managed a large codebase for a successful project. That demonstrates my organizational skills.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

operagost:
Looks like Nagesh took an English class and renamed himself "Paul Neumann".

Nope, it must be geoffrey. Nagesh would be telling us how he has 2 levels of project manager above him undercutting his productivity.

Following there would be a picture supposed to be taken in Hyderabad showing some clumsy, extremely dangerous structure where 3 people are working, two of them spatially above the other.

frits · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Chip:
As a developer, I want people to know it if I single-handedly managed a large codebase for a successful project. That demonstrates my lasso skills.

FTFY Yeehaw!

frits · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

According to this article, small teams beat large teams in efficiency, and are only negligibly slower.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Project Manager 2.0:

for $task in @tasks do
  print "Is task $task done yet?"
  read no
  print "Well what percent complete is it?"
  read dunno
  print "Well what would you guess?"
  read percent
  print "OK can I say it is " percent * 1.3 " percent done then?"
  read no
  ignore no
done

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Jack:
Fred:
I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:
"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1
Vex not the geeks, lest ye be replaced by a seven line script.

Especially vex not the Unix geeks, who discount you by a further six lines.

$ printf %s%08x ifconfig|grep -o 'HWaddr [0-9a-f:]*'|sed -e 's/HWaddr //' -e 's/://g' -e '1q' command --that --outputs --an --integer

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Larry:

Project Manager 2.0:

for $task in @tasks do
  print "Is task $task done yet?"
  read no
  print "Well what percent complete is it?"
  read dunno
  print "Well what would you guess?"
  read percent
  print "Hmm, last week you said it's " percent * 1.1 " percent done."
  read percent * 1.11
  print "OK can I say it is " (percent * 1.11) * 1.3 " percent done then?"
  read no
  ignore no
done

FTFM

Funny when that happens, is it...

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Chip:
As a developer, I want people to know it if I single-handedly mangled a large codebase for a successful project. That demonstrates my over-engineering skills.

FTFYFTW

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Chip:
As a developer, I want people to know it if I single-handedly managed a large codebase for an Excel VBA script used by Debbie in Accounting. That demonstrates my bullshitting skills.

RTFY

(Reality-fied That For You)

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Stories like this aren't even mildly amusing to me. They strike far too close to home and really just send my blood pressure into the stratosphere.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Larry:

Project Manager 2.0:

  print "OK can I say it is " percent * 1.3 " percent done then?"
  read no
  ignore no

I love this. Mine always do this to my quotes, and I've learned to adapt. For a project that will take me 80 hours, I say 100. This way, when they tell me I only get 80 (despite telling them 100) I look like a hard worker for pushing harder, and they look good for "managing well". This is better than saying 80 and only getting 60, because when it takes 80, the project is now over-budget, poorly-managed, and lazily-developed.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Where I used to work, this would be less a "Curious Perversion" and more "Another Tuesday".

At first, everything was run and managed by developers, who spent so much time trying to "manage" a project that very little development work got done.

So they created a PMO, which spent so much "managing" projects that no development work got done.

RussJudge · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

If it takes two contractors six months to drive a project to failure, four contractors will achieve that failure in half the time, but it will take twice as long for the failure to be acknowledged.

Anketam · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

What kind of schedule padding is this? Normal rule is double. So if it takes in theory 1 week to do you say 2 weeks*. Then you explain that the * means just your part and does not factor in all the other parts that will come after it and should be or have to be done, for example: testing, integration, and QA. So when it is all said and done that one week fix really gets/needs 6+ weeks of schedule to pull it off.

And that does not even factor in padding for spending time on the The Daily WTF.

TheCPUWizard · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

(Knowing there will be backlash)...I actually support having a PRoject Manager anytime the environment (not the team) involves a large number of people.

On the otherhand, nothing in the list of items Doug was doing should be done by a project manager. Instead the PM should take the information from the DEV/QA/etc. teams, distill it down to the information necessary for external consumption, as well as gather extrnal influences, and make sure they are presented to the DEV/QA/etc teams in a coherent manner.

C-Octothorpe · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

RussJudge:
If it takes two contractors six months to drive a project to failure, four contractors will achieve that failure in half the time, but it will take twice as long for the failure to be acknowledged.

Another advantage of using four contractors vs. two is that you have effectively doubled you scapegoat count. This is especially important for PMs who, like the mayan people, needed sacrificial lambs in order to appease their gods, or in this case, C-level management.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Paul Neumann:
Where I work, we have 4 project managers, 2 product owners, 3 team managers, 8 business analysts, 2 teams of 3 developers and a QA in a pear tree.

FTFY

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

No, Nagesh's QA may work from a pear tree, but, our QA works in a cube.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:

  print "Hmm, last week you said it's " percent * 1.1 " percent done."

But then we got some extra management oversight so the project moved backwards.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
print "Hmm, last week you said it's " percent * 1.1 " percent done."

So where is it written that status meetings have to be weekly? Imagine if we held them every 8 working days instead. Productivity would jump 60%!

Nagesh · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

QA is important in any project. Josh should not questioning authority. It is clear that Josh is lone hero programer in organization. We need less heros and more followers.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Jeff:
C-Octothorpe:
print "Hmm, last week you said it's " percent * 1.1 " percent done."
So where is it written that status meetings have to be weekly? Imagine if we held them every 8 working days instead. Productivity would jump 60%!

You are quite correct. Daily status meetings make for shorter meetings and more productive time which is monitored.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

They were armed with nothing but a rusty spoon

I like rusty spoons. I like to touch them.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

PiisAWheeL:
luptatum:
PiisAWheeL:
Fred:
It also draws something far more sinister: project managers
Indeed.
who want to steal that glory for themselves.
But you repeat yourself.
Project Managers are TRWTF, 9.7 times out of 10.

I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:

"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1
I like how you are billing for 4 lines of white-space ;)
That reminded me of a few times I heard some bozo devs (especially conducting job interviews) brag about their app, like: "this app has 20 thousand lines of code, you know" (like, that's a measure of anything related to features or quality).
No, but it is a pretty good measure of what the invoice looks like.

It also just occured to me that your 7 line function doesn't accept any input... well played :)

It is also only 5 lines.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Doug had compiled a PowerPoint full of pretty graphs and dashboards showing nothing but green boxes. He used words like synergy, Agile, "code coverage", "core principles" and "industry standard best practices". It was entirely fabricated nonesense, but management swallowed every drop.

Behold another not even minimally competent management. If you're going to run a software development firm then you should know at least a little bit about what software development is.

This company does not deserve to ever complete a project or earn earn a profit from any client. The sooner these a$$hats go out of business the better.

-Harrow.

2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Rosuav:
Jack:
Fred:
I have a theory that a Project Manager is actually just a 7-line VB loop:
"Is it done yet?"

"When will it be done?"

GO TO 1
Vex not the geeks, lest ye be replaced by a seven line script.

Especially vex not the Unix geeks, who discount you by a further six lines.

$ printf %s%08x ifconfig|grep -o 'HWaddr [0-9a-f:]*'|sed -e 's/HWaddr //' -e 's/://g' -e '1q' command --that --outputs --an --integer

Er, what? I tried $ printf %s%08x ifconfig|grep -o 'HWaddr [0-9a-f<b>A-F</b>:]*'|sed -e 's/HWaddr //' -e 's/://g' -e '1q' <b>echo 1</b>

but that just gives me what it looks like it should give me, my MAC in hex with no colons, followed by a number.

How does that replace the perfectly functional seven line script?

Captcha: commoveo, Commoveo here and explain this to me...

Nagesh · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

the beholder:
operagost:
Looks like Nagesh took an English class and renamed himself "Paul Neumann".
Nope, it must be geoffrey. Nagesh would be telling us how he has 2 levels of project manager above him undercutting his productivity.
Following there would be a picture supposed to be taken in Hyderabad showing some clumsy, extremely dangerous structure where 3 people are working, two of them spatially above the other.

Those pics from Kolkata and not Hyderabad.

frits · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

Harrow:
The sooner these a$$hats go out of business the better.

I'm confused. Do the managers have something to do with Microsoft? ..or Rap?

Nagesh · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

frits:
Harrow:
The sooner these a$$hats go out of business the better.
I'm confused. Do the managers have something to do with Microsoft? ..or Rap?

I am more confused then you.

PedanticCurmudgeon · 2012-01-31 Reply Admin

TRWTF is that Josh didn't start looking for another job when Doug declared himself QA Officer and Build Officer.

Save the Project for Failure

Leave a comment on “Save the Project for Failure”