Tag: deadline11

--Originally published at TI2011 – Roger's Rad Records

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The plot of the book thickened in this chapter: Mr. T was having a great morning until Waldo came and told him that the NNL had to go to the US and put someone else in charge. “Allair Belok, Minister of Internal Affairs and Deputy Tyrant” is how he introduced himself. He made a strong first impression by joking with Mr. Tompkins’ countdown display and making it display ‘420’. By the way he was described, Belok seemed like an infuriating person. Mr. T got all sarcastic and the two of them started discussing about the deadlines, the teams, the managers, profit, among other things.

Belok basically wanted to let Mr. Tompkins know that things would be different while he was in charge. He ordered to merge the three teams for each product into one bigger team, he set a new deadline six months earlier than the previous one* and didn’t seem to care about what Mr. T had to tell him. He just wouldn’t listen and turned out to be just the kind of boss Webster despised.

The NNL was gone, and so was Ms. Hoolihan. Mr. T, Belinda and Gabriel had no alternative: they had to do as Belok commanded and all of their efforts until then would go to waste. Or would they? They actually decided to obey their new superior, but not without making new secret teams to stick to their original plan and secretly work on three different instances for each of the products, as they initially intended,

This chapter was heavily focused on the story, so there isn’t much technical content for this entry. The only thing I can think of is the Pathological Politics mentioned in both Mr. T’s

Continue reading "DEADLINE, chapter 11. This situation we ought to leaven."

--Originally published at TI2011 – Miguel’s Blog

Chapter 11 starts peacefully. Tompkins was enjoying a beautiful morning. He was breathing the fresh air, looking at birds, relaxing stuff. However, things take a complete 180° when he arrives at his office. NNL had gone to the states and the man in charge was now Mr. Belok. He was very different from NNL. NNL was portrayed as a really evil man at first, but once the book introduced him, he turned out to be a reasonable man. On the other hand, Mr. Belok was very different, even if he, himself, said that he was reasonable.

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The first thing Mr. Belok did change the deadline. The deadline was a few months earlier than Tompkins expected. Mr. Belok was very strict. He stated what he wanted and wasn’t backing off. However, as strict as he was, he made some solid points, although he made some not solid ones too. The first point he made was the insane money they were going to lose for every day that the products are late. With all 6 products they would be making $250,000 a year. So every day the project goes over the deadline they are losing $250,000. Moreover, Mr. Belok wasn’t fond of the management experiment at all, mainly because he was losing money. Mr. Belok demanded that Tompkins joins all 3 teams for each project.

Tompkins didn’t respond calmly to Mr. Belok’s request. And Tompkins actually did many things that you are supposed to do in this situation. Tompkins explained his view of the project as well as gave some criticism of his own. He mentioned that joining the teams would actually increase the time needed, which was true according to his tests. However, Mr. Belok was having none of it. He didn’t care if the projects took longer. And Continue reading "Deadline, Chapter 11"

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Blog

If there is something project managers seem to get used to over time is to manage problems, it even seems that experienced managers don’t get affected emotionally by them anymore. Giving it a good thought that seems like a challenge, and to be able to put away all work problems should be considered a gift in my opinion.