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Subject:Re: People don't see problems that don't happen From:Michelle Vina-Baltsas <Michelle_Vina-Baltsas -at- datascope -dot- com> To:Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com> Date:Mon, 7 May 2007 10:01:22 -0400
Another suggestion would be to go to the higher ups and have them set the
priorities. I recently became unable to keep up with the crazy pace of
back-to-back software releases and got tired of killing myself to meet
INSANE deadlines. I went to manager and asked for her assistance. Once I
outlined all the project deliverable dates and tasks she could see that
one person could not possibly meet the projected dates. She met with the
project managers and they've given me priority lists so that I know what
should be done first, second, etc. I've never had to do this before in my
15 years experience, but I was at a breaking point. All projects were due
within a week of each other, all projects are high profile, and all are
very important to the company, of course. As a result, I've gotten some
dates moved, am getting help (6 month contractor), and am not as stressed
out. Also, the quality of work I'm delivering is much better because I'm
not rushing to move on to the next project.
At my company, it is the managers and projects managers responsibility to
ensure that a project has the appropriate resources for a project. It is
my responsibility to alert my manager if I don't think that a deliverable
date will be met. I took a chance in them saying that I wasn't 'managing
my time' properly, but providing a detailed daily task list helped to
dispel any of these thoughts.
Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com>
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05/07/2007 09:40 AM
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Subject
Re: People don't see problems that don't happen
Unfortunately, all of these workarounds contribute to
an office more mired in time-wasting politics. She
needs to go to her upstream controllers and tell them
she is overworked and can't keep it up, and then
suggest how to fix it. She will either get sign-off,
get them thinking about it, or learn how quickly she
should find a new job.
--- neilson -at- windstream -dot- net wrote:
> The phrase "documentation plan" comes to mind.
> Indeed, the phrase "very elaborate documentation
> plan with statistics drawn from previous projects"
> comes to the furthest front of the mind. What's
> needed is not the imminent failure of a project, but
> an accurate presentation of how close to failure the
> company continues to run every project.
>
> > > ... I told her, gently, because you MEET every
> deadline,
> > > no matter how ridiculous. You have to at least
> allow the
> > > project to appear to crash and burn. Before you
> rescue
> > > it, of course.
> > >
> > > Always painful but sometimes necessary. Not
> > > surprisingly, she won't do it...
> > >
> >
> > Neither would I. Sounds pretty unethical to me.
>
>
>
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