why do we do this every time?
We have a process at work that shuts down a certain application. The application is used, not only internally, but by several news services and brodcast television people outside the company. Whenever we have to do updates, the whole thing is unusable. Well, this is only the second time we've done it, so the process isn't quite seamless. There are unforseen issues that still pop up.
Yet, my boss is determined to keep the application down for as little time as possible, and tell the world that it will be back up and running at 9:00 in the morning. 9:00 is an optimistic guess based on everything going right overnight, which.....hasn't happened yet and isn't happening now. I'm thinking once we've done it 5 or 6 times and we get the process down, expecting everything to go right isn't that far off the mark, but for now, it's expecting a bit much. Yet, he sends emails out to the whole company saying, "Don't worry, you'll have it back by 9:00." So now, we have to send out more e-mails saying...sorry, it's not working yet...maybe in an hour or so. I ask him why we can't factor in things that might go wrong, and I get asked, "Well, what are those things? Lets fix them now." Well, if I knew, they would already be fixed, but giving the world an estimate based on everything going right is lunacy with the amount of experience we have with this thing.
On top of it, it isn't even my thing. It's a project managed by someone else. The code was written by someone else, and the process is being completed by someone else. I get pulled in because....we have a problem, so we need to figure out what to do now. It seems to me we could alleviate part of the problem by being up front with everyone and saying, "You won't be able to use it till noon." That way, nobody likes that, but at least they can plan on not having it till then instead of expecting it at 9:00 and not getting it. Then, if everything does go right, and it's back by 9:00, nobody's any angrier than they were before and you even look pretty good.
So now, this is the second time we've done this and the second time we're apologizing to the world for not doing what he said we would do.
Sorry for the whine, but I needed to vent a little.
Yet, my boss is determined to keep the application down for as little time as possible, and tell the world that it will be back up and running at 9:00 in the morning. 9:00 is an optimistic guess based on everything going right overnight, which.....hasn't happened yet and isn't happening now. I'm thinking once we've done it 5 or 6 times and we get the process down, expecting everything to go right isn't that far off the mark, but for now, it's expecting a bit much. Yet, he sends emails out to the whole company saying, "Don't worry, you'll have it back by 9:00." So now, we have to send out more e-mails saying...sorry, it's not working yet...maybe in an hour or so. I ask him why we can't factor in things that might go wrong, and I get asked, "Well, what are those things? Lets fix them now." Well, if I knew, they would already be fixed, but giving the world an estimate based on everything going right is lunacy with the amount of experience we have with this thing.
On top of it, it isn't even my thing. It's a project managed by someone else. The code was written by someone else, and the process is being completed by someone else. I get pulled in because....we have a problem, so we need to figure out what to do now. It seems to me we could alleviate part of the problem by being up front with everyone and saying, "You won't be able to use it till noon." That way, nobody likes that, but at least they can plan on not having it till then instead of expecting it at 9:00 and not getting it. Then, if everything does go right, and it's back by 9:00, nobody's any angrier than they were before and you even look pretty good.
So now, this is the second time we've done this and the second time we're apologizing to the world for not doing what he said we would do.
Sorry for the whine, but I needed to vent a little.
John put this out here at 8:11 AM
2 Comments:
Your boss likes to please too many ppl ... but not those that work for him it would seem
Yes, but the end result is just pissing everyone off more. If you give them a realistic expectation to start with, they may not like it but at least they can plan around it. If you give them a dream up front and they make plans based on that, and the dream dies, you just made them even more upset.
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