Sometimes you need to take charge

Rain stopped play today and, due to parking arrangements, I was encouraged to use 30%'s car to travel in to work this morning.

There is not a lot to report on the working day. I had a call about the status of the deal that occupied much of my time from October through until early April this year. Reading between the lines I think that one is dead in the water and will not require any attention for twelve months or more. Back to the current engagement, today's problem to overcome was that the Sales team had made a few promises about scope that had only come to light in the past twenty four hours ...

... the problem is that the Lead Project Manager needs to finalise every thing by Friday afternoon in preparation for a major review next Wednesday. I wandered in to a meeting covering this additional scope and listened to the Sales Exec talk about Revenue Streams and the Lead PM plead for information that he would never get. After five minutes I thought I understood the problem so left the meeting room in search of a whiteboard marker ...

... upon my return I put on a mildly bossy persona and threw up a quick diagram / graph on the board. The audience gave a series of nods so I summarised by telling them to sod off and model a simple bubble of costs with sufficient stated assumptions to cover their collective arses. "but, but, but ... ?" came the response from the PM so I pointed out that with two days to go he had no option but to follow this very simple approach. He is a good PM but is focussing on detail and having everything just right rather than being endpoint orientated and knowing that some times being in the queue outside the ball park is close enough.

The bulk of the day was spent in in a solution review which allowed me to get thoroughly acquainted with current affairs via the BBC News website.

I eventually arrived home at around six o'clock having already decided that there would be no evening walk due to a threatening sky and drizzle. Instead I wandered out to the garage and fixed the replacement leg to the sideboard before returning to the house for dinner.

As we settled down for the evening VI appeared on the doorstep and joined us for an hour or so. The main reason for his visit was to ask me to look after his chickens and pigeons when he is on holiday next week. I agreed to pop down on Friday evening to be given an overview of Poultry Husbandry Village Idiot style.