RE: Projects are getting shorter and shorter

["Barbara Harrison" <bharris -at- Cavps -dot- com>]

On short project timelines and clueless bosses:

G. Abenhaim wrote: 
<<" Not only are they getting shorter when your boss doesnt even have a clue of what you do, . . . .">>

The president of our company approached me at the summer company picnic on 7/19.  He mentioned that he thought the Access queries that our business analysts use should probably be documented.  I kept a straight face and agreed.  

The next Monday, 7/21, I started contacting each analyst (we have 7) about how many queries he or she uses, what processes they are used in, what business use the process met, etc. Knowing that queries don't exist in a vacuum around here, and that the entire business use and process should also be documented, I then ran the numbers and came up with a due date of about October 1. In the mean time, our owner's right-hand man contacted me with his proposed due date: 8/15.  When I sent him an email explaining the scope of the project, my numbers (including hours/day I could commit to the project, how available my SMEs are, the total number of queries and processes, etc), and the math of how I came up with my estimated completion date, he wrote back and said that my date was "nutty." He then scaled the project back to the "20 most important queries" (which have yet to be defined), and nothing else.  I tried to explain to him the REAL DOLLAR cost of losing an analyst, when nothing that analyst does is documented in any way, but he just ignored me.  My official due date is still 8/15.

Barbara Harrison
Tulsa, Oklahoma