The "D" way...

A huge cake, very tasty, covered with Marzipan, my favorite, and lots of happy people. Today we celebrated a launch of a product that was not delivered, or in regular people's words - just did not happen. I bet someone said:" damn, we cannot deliver the product on time, so what shall we do? What shall we do?

"Eureka!! We can still deliver the cake!"

Happy people in the kingdom of D.

(I wonder whether we will celebrate a new cake once the product will be really, but really, launched.)

Just less than a month ago, a different product was launched successfully 'on time, on budget', and there was NO cake. The D management decision was that the project was launched successfully since the people worked on it, were doing the job they were requested to, so why the hell would anyone bring them a cake?! No one is volunteering to work here.. Hello?! They all get paid.

But hey, if you don't do your job, a product doesn't launch, the system doesn't work, the organization collapses and all are stressed, then what would be better than a cake to lift the sad faces and low morale up? Correct, A cake!

That my dear friends, is the D way!

Now let's say that your project is in a critical phase and it is not performing, what would you do if you were to use the D way?

1. Focus on the problematic area and act fast.

2. Find the weak link within the problematic area and look into out of the box solutions.
3. Be efficient, be creative.

or

1. Immediately say, "There are no resources".

2. Start playing with the organizational chart - after 3 weeks of play, come with the conclusion that:

    a. "There are no resources".

    b.  4 more managers are needed immediately.

    c. You need to delegate this task to someone else because of: #3.

3. Communicate that you feel stressed, and you don't know when you will feel better.

4. Communicate your vacation plans that, what a bad luck, falls exactly on the planned launch date of the project you are leading.

and... the winning answer, is?!  Come on, do you really think I am going to tell you?  Think! Think!

So, now we have a new project manager replacing the stressed project manager, without much of knowledge transfer, but who cares after all the conclusion was that the project needs to be staffed with 4 new managers filling the organization chart vertically and horizontally (literal translation from arabic saying: Bil tool ew Bil 3ard), layer in front and layer in back. The more inefficient you are, the more successful you are, the more money burnt on managers the bigger  your project is, the more cakes you get!

If all this doesn't work and the project didn't launch on time (no way it is going to launch on budget, you already know that - right?), then just bring another cake, continue complaining about the size and the scope of the project and how huge it is, while you have more managers than developers and/or testers, but still, add few more managers since you are so busy changing the organizational chart again, preparing a new presentation to describe it to managers again, and joining additional 10 more status meetings a week. Ohh, how could I forget the status reports and the Minutes of Meetings that you need to write.

So now you invested 4.75 hours in writing detailed report and then another 4-5 days preparing a presentation for the executive managers (Decision makers), so they can see the real status of the project, the progress, the open issues, the risks and of course the new updated budget!

You send it for your direct manager, a part of the executive managers board, for his review, and then it comes back to you looking all "red" (track changes, track changes) like after the Great Northern War between Denmark & Sweden in 1700-1721.

Some numbers should be changed, others should just disappear, move left to right, right to left, change some colors, remove few sentences, add few others, make it look "realistic", and yuppy hurray, we are done!

It is ready for presentation! Serious decisions need to be made, the presentation should be as accurate as possible for best decisions. Executive managers, look at the presentation, the numbers look right ("Not more than X millions, Great, not need for board approval"), ask few questions to show interest and here we go, Go/NoGo?

Go, NoGo, Go, NoGo, Go Go Go!! and let the Boss enjoy the Cha Cha Cha (Cover His Ass) dance!