(Something Smells a Bit) Off Site

As we all know, the best solution to mending a tattered, infighting team is to lock them in a hotel ballroom together for a whole day, whereupon Magic Corporate Pixies will fly in and spread goodwill, cheer, and half-decent afternoon snacks all around. We will frolic amongst the branded pens and pads, polyester tablecloths, and stained velvet chairs, join hands and weep for our souls in need of refactoring.

Uh. Well, at least the part about the half-decent afternoon snacks is true. Swedish meatballs, in fact.

No one was expecting very much apart from free food at today's offsite, least of all me. Our confidence was fully reinforced by the man facilitating the festivities.

"You're paid to create software. I'm paid to facilitate meetings. We all got a job to do here."

Wow, let me get this straight. Someone employed on the outer fringes of the company, not involved directly in the business, without a shred of experience of the intricacies of the IT department, is going to spend the next 8 hours telling us how to work better as a team?

Our development manager is asking a taxidermist to revive the dog he purposefully ran over (twice) in his driveway?

It was all the facilitator could do to get us to play along while he lectured us about the wonderful, different company culture. At each point, he tried to extract examples to demonstrate precisely how wonderful everything was.

"Does anyone want to share how they have experienced management asking for your input on how they should conduct an important activity?"

Dead air. Everyone looks down to desperately avoid eye contact with the facilitator.

"Anybody?"

The clock ticks.

"Anyone?"

Management brows crease. They'll need a change of underwear in a few more moments.

Thankfully, one of the overeager new guys volunteers a shamelessly canned testimony to their lord and master. "Well, we did have a lessons learned session after Iteration 1!"

Diluted bliss crosses management faces. Panty crisis averted.

In yet another situation made for television, the praise leader asks, "So who here has heard that we have a really flat management structure?"

A smattering of hands goes up.

"Now, who actually believes it?"

Every single arm shoots down, except those belonging to the managers, who slowly peer around at each other, wondering what in the world just happened. They look mildly sheepish and ashamed, having shown that they are the last kids on the block who believe in Santa Claus. Of course, they were the ones that got the XBox 360s for Christmas. The other kids got socks.

Still, the day wasn't without its redeeming moments. When all were asked to discuss and present what made their best experience on a team great, everyone takes the opportunity to make thinly veiled jabs at what exactly made this team their worst experience.

"No egos -- everyone worked for the common good!"

"Everyone was totally open and honest with each other..."

"The team was of a reasonable size."

It seems surreal and totally unexpected, so many people standing up and subtly giving management what-for. Could management have anticipated that this was the likely outcome of the activity? Who killed the Pixies?

Lastly, the best moment of all happens during the eye-rolling "Stop, Start, Continue" exercise, where each functional group lists items it should stop, start, and continue doing. The Soulless Himbo Backstabber smugly agrees to scribe for the table. He steps up to the plate, wallowing in his amazing ability to fool the team's manager and all the pitiable analysts with his smooth act. He and his gang of hairy cheerleaders had spread all manner of vicious rumors about everyone at the table and beyond.

In acts of sheer survival, every team experiences enormous difficulty listing what things the team should stop doing. Finally, the analysis manager speaks.

"Here's one. We should stop talking behind people's backs."

Himbo, shocked, makes a graspingly poor attempt at humor. "What, you mean don't talk behind your back? Hey everybody, we should stop talking behind AM's back!"

AM is not amused. "No, we should stop talking behind Each Other's backs. Go ahead. Write it down."

Watching Himbo scribe Point #12 is like watching him slit his own wrists. When AM makes Himbo read it out to the whole gathering as well -- to aghast heckling -- AM climbs up a million ranks in my estimation. I am hoping against every hope that this is the moment when Himbo has finally Jumped The Shark.

As the day ends and everyone packs up, I thank AM for Point #12. He smiles. In the distance, I swear I can hear the faint giggles of the Magic Corporate Pixies.

Let Them Eat Cake

The uber-organized and perky pet analyst pings me on Messenger shortly before lunch.

Pet Analyst: Hi! I know you're swamped but do you think you might have some time on Monday to chat with me on your feelings about the analysis process and how it could be improved?
Me: Sure... Is this for QA, or in general?

In a bloody coup, the recently installed development manager kicked all existing team leads to the curb and replaced them with his Chosen Few. He hand-picked PA for the QA lead. She claimed she didn't ask to be put there. Vicious rumors neglect the fact that PA kept trying to escape the QA lead position. Jealousy -- absorbs Truth better than the leading paper towel!

PA: I'm not in QA anymore. It's for in general.
Me: Cool! Are you being asked to improve the overall process?

Uh. She didn't sound so perky there. I suspect I've started a game of 20 Questions that no one wants to play. Quick! Throw in a smiley!

Me: Or should I just stop asking so many questions? ;)
PA: Tee hee! No problem, ask as many questions as you want! What's a good time for you?
Me: Anytime's good, my calendar's wide open on Monday. So how does this fit into the process that's being created for the next stage of development?

I'm continuing a game of 20 Questions that no one wants to play.

PA: This will feed into the process, and I'm hoping that it will be done soon enough to positively influence the tail-end of this stage of development too.
Me: Oh right, I thought Next Stage Analyst had it sorted out already?

As I understood it, NSA was told to do this weeks ago, and to my knowledge had finished it and presented it to management.

PA: Nope. He started it, but he's too busy with next-stage business process modelling so I'm lending a hand. Also, I've helped out other teams with this before, so they figured I could do it again for this team.

Who's "They"?

Me: I seeeeee. Kinda like internal management consultancy? :D

Oops. Did I just inadvertently insult PA? Prior to this job, she was a benchwarmer at Andersen Consulting. Oh well. She may not notice, with the clumsily placed smiley.

PA: I guess so. Just wish they paid me management consultancy rates!

"They" again. I reach for my tinfoil hat and styrofoam cup of water.

PA: Ah well, time for lunch! You should go as well, before you burn yourself out!
Me: Sure, ttyl!

Time for Arby's. Super Roast Beef and Curly Fries, mmmmm.

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So apparently, management does realize that the analysis process needs to be changed. Perhaps they've noticed that the main activities on the analysis team include gleeful backstabbing of other analysts and doing victory butt-wiggles on bodies of dead colleagues? Or is it the smell emanating from the steaming heap of documents no-one cares to read (least of all the developers)? It's like Lord of the Flies, except exceedingly more pathetic.

But wait! I thought the processes already changed once as a result of the first iteration lessons learned? And before that, for the roadmap initiative? And before that for the as-is venture? And before that...

It's worse than the French political environment. In the space of a year, there have been innumerable attempts at creating process, tearing it down, Getting the Blame Fingers Out, and building a new process back up again. We are on at least Revolution 33-1/3, and what have we got to show for it? A contorted shrine to Waterfall, cobbled together from the charred remains of RUP.

The aim is not to create amazing software in the least amount of time possible and for the least amount of money. The aim is to make each and every goon feel like their ideas have value.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone this obsessed with process must be petrified of code, business knowledge, or both. The French had it good. At least they got the satisfaction of beheadings.

Darth Hut

What do you get when you cross Jabba the Hut and Darth Vader? You get one of the most arrogant, ill-willed, gravely obese, and hygenically questionable programmers on the face of this universe, whose permanently audible breathing mentally disturbs all but the most steely-nerved: Darth Hut.

He spends much of his day at work not doing work, but telling other people how great he is, and how everyone else (particularly the person he's speaking to) is getting it wrong. Famous quote: "In my 10 years of developing software, I have never met a user I would call smart."

Ah. He had me at hello.

"Oh, I just didn't get any sleep last night," he proffers as bait to anyone listening around him. I turn up my iPod.

Sucker #1 responds, "Oh dear, why?" Bingo. Hut waddles over and stretches his arms sky-ward, exposing a thatched belly underneath his food-stained T-shirt. Sucker winces. It's unclear whether this is due to visual or nasal input.

"I'm so busy already, but my friend insisted that I review his manuscript on the .NET framework. It's just about all I can do to catch his errors..." Darth Hut exhales with mock exasperation.

Sucker, trapped, feels obliged to keep up his part of the conversation. I'm not sure at this point whether he has lost the will to live -- he stays motionless, hoping Hut will get bored and walk away. It just doesn't work that way with Hut.

A painful pause ensues. Hut looms large still. "So what chapter are you on?" he continues weakly.

"Oh, I'm on Chapter 2, the part where my friend feels I'm adding incredible color for discussing the inbuilt class libraries. With all I know, I should be writing this book myself. Then I wouldn't have to be working in this dump."

The ego-fest continues for another 15 excruciating minutes, despite Sucker's valiant attempts at getting back to his work and checking his watch every minute. What Sucker doesn't understand is that now that Hut's ensnared him, he's not letting go. Hut doesn't ever volunteer to stop talking, no matter how much his audience clearly loses interest. This was never about having a conversation. Like a pig scratching its privates, Sucker is a conveniently available tree trunk. And Hut's privates are always itchy.

The Day the User Came to Town

Our newest user subject matter expert (SME) has been persuaded to spend one day a week here in the technology outpost, and today was her first day. She was all smiles, as she usually is, and was promptly mobbed by the Puffed Up Ego of the Month.

Mr. PUEM gave Mrs. SME a grand tour of his land, sweeping hand gestures and all. This is the same guy who told Mrs. SME that the SME that came before her had tarnished her reputation and damaged the project by having favorites. For that reason, she should choose him as her preferred analyst. She should pull strings to get him and another on her team.

"The others are nothing, darling," I imagine him whispering. "Only I know everything. Even you don't know everything." His squinty eyes and pointy-toothed grin give her an uneasy sense of comfort. Either he really does know everything, or he's going to eat her with fava beans and a glass of Chianti.

Meanwhile, the analyst team manager is busy interviewing for yet another team member. Is a cast of 50 not yet enough to support what was previously done in a modestly-sized Excel spreadsheet? Clearly not.

Having said that, the blame layers are looking awfully thin and worn lately. Accountability for things going wrong threatens to go straight to the people who are responsible. Just last week, the users learned to their horror that the production release wasn't actually when management said it would be only a week prior. And management knew about the realities of the release for months.

What's that? A lie? Nah. Miscalculation? Don't think so. Sheer bloody denial and cheekiness? You decide.

Either way, the users found out the truth. We can't have that. We need more bodies to absorb shrapnel.

Dude, Where's My Zone: A Year in the Life of Bad Software

Today is the day I stop caring. Yesterday, and all the days before that, I was never going to write a book. I never had the time, talent, or experience to convey anything meaningful to the greater public. I still don't.

But that won't stop me, because I officially couldn't give a hoot anymore. I have spent two years working in places which purport to create software, and all I have found is that I have landed in time-wasting harbors of dross which are awash in free corporate bucks. I am finally ready for my life to be a lesson to others in what never to do and where never to go.

Namely, don't go into technology today thinking it is some sort of place that values efficiency or intelligence. Fritter your dreams away on something else, or know that you are entering a socialist wasteland of big egos fluffing out little brains.

Where else but in technology could a system which could have been written by two competent programmers be painstakingly churned out by "30" man teams abroad, and have to endure an approval process as long as many small animals' lifespans? Or where could one find applications that started life as decently complex -- but altogether straightforward -- spreadsheets supported by 4 business users become the bane of a group of 50 vicious and dull people?

My year has been infested with methodology, paranoia, bureaucracy, incompetence, slander, indifference, naked aggression, and more. In fact, my year has been filled with more psychological, intellectual, and technical dysfunction than I have ever witnessed in my entire life. To cap it all off, I have not seen a single project deliver a complete product, however small, on time and to requirements.

Welcome to my year.