Confessions of an IT Manager_Phil Factor

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The Sticking Page-Down-Key Incident First published 01 September 2006 He who promises more than he is able to perform is false to himself and can do damage to his friends. Most software projects seem to go on an emotional roller-coaster voyage. Initial euphoria soon fades into confusion, quickly followed by desperation. If a project is going to succeed in reaching port, then out of this desperation must come a consensus decision to save as much as possible from the wreckage of the initial 'vision'. Maybe I'm unlucky, but I've never worked on a project where the voyage didn't involve a storm and a near-shipwreck. In projects that are going to fail, desperation is followed by despair, resignation and a state of apathy, as the rigging crashes around your ears, and the rats desert the sinking ship. The rats desert the sinking ship Quite often, in a development project's stage of apathy, I've been hired to report on the problems affecting the project and to try to suggest rapid ways of 'turning the ship around'.
146 The Sticking Page-Down-Key Incident The problem that confronts any 'consultant' faced with providing a simple picture of the state of a project, and the solution to its ills, is to turn a mass of conflicting, and sometimes irrelevant, information into something sensible and intelligible. Most problems besetting a software development project are complex and diffuse. Very rarely, however, one gets the delightful experience of accidentally stumbling on the simple nub of the problem straight away. It was one of these experiences that I remember as the 'Sticking Page-Down- Key incident'. It was a telesales application that was being developed by the IT department of a well-known company. The distraught manager showed me the ranks of telesales people in the vast open-plan office, trying, and failing, to use the initial release of the software. Most had reverted to the previous system. I talked to all the team members individually, and read through the project documentation. If I were to believe everything that was written there, then the project was in wonderful shape. I didn't, because it wasn't. I was beginning my rounds once again when I settled on the team writing the client application. I started to talk to one of the team members, using my usual trick of pretending to be even more stupid than I really am. I asked him about the technology; He gave me a 'Word Salad'. 'Word Salad', I should explain, is a technical term that describes stringing phrases together in a random order. It is an attempt to bluff the user into believing that the words convey subtle meaning too intricate for the listener to comprehend. It is much used in IT to cover-up a lack of knowledge. I find being the recipient of a 'Word Salad' particularly irritating. Whilst fidgeting around, willing him silently to stop, I accidentally leant on the keyboard and the 'Page-Down' key. I stared transfixed at the screen. Initially, there was a flurry of movement on the screen and then nothing, just static text: Nothing, that is, excepting for a number changing at the top of the screen. I pulled myself off the keyboard. The number stopped moving. I pressed the Page-Down again: a twitch of the number, but the rest of the screen static. After what seemed like an age, the screen suddenly burst into flickering life. This programmer had been making a large number of SQL calls to the database, just changing one parameter every time. It just so happened that each iteration took up exactly a screen-height when the editing window was maximised. I scrolled back to the start of the source-code file and pressed the Page- Down button again. Normally, when you hold the Next-Page button down
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Best of Simple Talk Confessions of
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ii Copyright Phil Factor 2009 ISBN
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iv Clinging to the Flotsam. A Survi
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Introduction During my career as an
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10 Training Your IT Manager The DBA
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12 Training Your IT Manager Section
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14 Training Your IT Manager via cur
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16 Training Your IT Manager it. Per
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18 Training Your IT Manager Of cour
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20 The Septic Tank Miscellaneous el
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The Yancey Men First published 03 O
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Section I: On Learning to Love your
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Bunnikins! First published 24 Augus
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36 Betting on Promotion At one stag
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38 Betting on Promotion could at le
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40 How to Prevent Initiatives that
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42 How to Prevent Initiatives Guys,
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Irregular verbs for IT managers Fir
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Phrases with which to discourage id
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52 Initiating a project with a Stra
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Looking Busy First published 23 Nov
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60 Doing things - The Manual Do som
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62 The Incident of 'The Two Johns'
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Section II: The Strange Business of
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66 Going It Alone I had it working,
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The Walrus and the Manager First Pu
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Click-A-Crematorium First published
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80 A Chilling Prophecy Some time ag
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82 Talking Technical explaining tha
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The Diary of a Microsoft Marketing
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Microsoft Boy announces his School
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92 The March of Technology "Just be
Page 95 and 96: 94 The March of Technology got the
Page 98 and 99: Clinging to the Flotsam. A Survivor
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Page 111 and 112: 110 Confessions of an IT Strategist
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Page 115 and 116: 114 The Technically Minded Subclass
Page 118 and 119: The Data Dialog First Published 30
Page 122 and 123: The Joy of NAD First Published 30 O
Page 128 and 129: Smoke and Mirrors First Published 1
Page 133 and 134: 132 The Acronym Playpen Basic. I ch
Page 136 and 137: The Writing on the Wall First publi
Page 140 and 141: The Ghost in the Machine First publ
Page 149 and 150: 148 The Sticking Page-Down-Key Inci
Page 151 and 152: 150 The Escape from Developer Hell
Page 153 and 154: 152 The Escape from Developer Hell
Page 155 and 156: 154 The Time Bomb The bolt from the
Page 157 and 158: 156 The Time Bomb I made sure that
Page 159 and 160: 158 The Time Bomb For us, it was so
Page 161 and 162: 160 On the Trail with the Cowboy Co
Page 163 and 164: 162 On the Trail with the Cowboy Co
Page 165 and 166: 164 When the Fever is Over, and one
Page 168 and 169: The Computer that Swore First Publi
Page 176 and 177: Section IV: Hiring, Firing and othe
Page 182 and 183: IT Agencies and the Devil First pub
Page 188 and 189: The Stepford Geeks First published
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Page 193 and 194: 192 The Terror of Technical Tests t
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194 The Interview with the Psychome
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196 Brown Shoes Don't Make It in th
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Technical Interviews and Tests Have
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Section IV: Hiring, Firing and othe
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204 Two stops short of Dagenham Eve
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The March of Time First published 2
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Fired With Enthusiasm First Publish
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The Whipping Boy First published 21
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220 Hens that Crow He seemed compel
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222 Hens that Crow street. I spent
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224 The New Man subject he knew abs
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226 The New Man told me the Directo
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Section V: What If …? 229 Had IT
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Section V: What If …? 231 energy
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Had offshoring been responsible for
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Section V: What If …? 235 Beaumon
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Section V: What If …? 237 Jonson:
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240 Had Tennyson been a Technical A
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242 Had God been a Technical Author
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244 Had the Sistine Chapel been Cre
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250 Captain Codd and the Simple Pro
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252 Captain Codd and the Simple Pro
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Section VI: Hiccoughs in the Workin
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260 The Pub Lunch and Programming i
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262 At half-past three, it's time f
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264 At half-past three, it's time f
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266 Cha: Tea-drinking for IT Develo
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Survival Tips for PowerPoint Boredo
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276 The Joy of IT Meetings period.
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Why do we call them 'Bugs'? First p
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The Ballad of the Tuple Relation Fi
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Common Law, and the Need for Restra
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288 Phil Factor on the Law my appli
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290 Phil Factor on the Law Meanwhil
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292 Santa's SLA revenue days for th
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Tomorrow will be our Dancing Day Ph
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302 The Data Center that Exploded:
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304 The Data Center that Exploded:
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About Red Gate You know those annoy
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