Sigh ... What to do ... another mess.
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Hey All, So I've landed my new gig. The team is a mix of perms and contractors (I'm a contractor). The team is great, a really nice bunch of people. However ... The main product being ported to new tech is big and complex (I like complex, that isn't the problem) and legacy in places, that also isn't a problem. The problem is that the business threw this major web site build at their in-house Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before, let alone one as complex as this and basically they've screwed the pooch. I have no idea exactly when the project started but the first batch of contractors went in last year. There is a lot of code already and they are really under pressure to deliver quickly. It's barely 20% of the final product and its complete spaghetti already. I'm on my first task and what should have taken a day at most is now on day 3 and barely started. It took most of the first day to even figure out where to put any new code. They have taken multiple web frameworks and approaches and munged them altogether. Missing the fundamentals of each and using bits of each framework for various tasks. It runs sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowly. I would normally work through stuff like this and gradually improve things etc. But this re-write already needs a re-write. Due to how they have set things up gradually improving things just isn't an option. I honestly cannot see the project getting delivered to production. If it does get there it's going to be one holy nightmare to support, costly and no doubt very error prone. I know at least one other contractor on the team feels exactly the same as me. Everyone else seems to just be business as usual. Developer productivity is completely shot to pieces. The potential impact on the business is huge and expensive. I feel a responsibility to highlight my thoughts but I also have no idea who made some of the decisions or any of the historical politics. The feeling I get is an undercurrent of a few people knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it. I have no idea what to do or say at the moment so for me it's also going to be business as usual. I have no idea what the reaction would be to me saying anything. Nor who would be most offended or become defensive. The problem I have personally is that I feel adding to the mess is morally wrong. Not to mention that this is going to make my work life for the next however long extremely stressful and entirely unenjoyable. How have you guys dealt with these situations?
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Hey All, So I've landed my new gig. The team is a mix of perms and contractors (I'm a contractor). The team is great, a really nice bunch of people. However ... The main product being ported to new tech is big and complex (I like complex, that isn't the problem) and legacy in places, that also isn't a problem. The problem is that the business threw this major web site build at their in-house Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before, let alone one as complex as this and basically they've screwed the pooch. I have no idea exactly when the project started but the first batch of contractors went in last year. There is a lot of code already and they are really under pressure to deliver quickly. It's barely 20% of the final product and its complete spaghetti already. I'm on my first task and what should have taken a day at most is now on day 3 and barely started. It took most of the first day to even figure out where to put any new code. They have taken multiple web frameworks and approaches and munged them altogether. Missing the fundamentals of each and using bits of each framework for various tasks. It runs sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowly. I would normally work through stuff like this and gradually improve things etc. But this re-write already needs a re-write. Due to how they have set things up gradually improving things just isn't an option. I honestly cannot see the project getting delivered to production. If it does get there it's going to be one holy nightmare to support, costly and no doubt very error prone. I know at least one other contractor on the team feels exactly the same as me. Everyone else seems to just be business as usual. Developer productivity is completely shot to pieces. The potential impact on the business is huge and expensive. I feel a responsibility to highlight my thoughts but I also have no idea who made some of the decisions or any of the historical politics. The feeling I get is an undercurrent of a few people knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it. I have no idea what to do or say at the moment so for me it's also going to be business as usual. I have no idea what the reaction would be to me saying anything. Nor who would be most offended or become defensive. The problem I have personally is that I feel adding to the mess is morally wrong. Not to mention that this is going to make my work life for the next however long extremely stressful and entirely unenjoyable. How have you guys dealt with these situations?
Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before
Ouch. I have been there.
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Hey All, So I've landed my new gig. The team is a mix of perms and contractors (I'm a contractor). The team is great, a really nice bunch of people. However ... The main product being ported to new tech is big and complex (I like complex, that isn't the problem) and legacy in places, that also isn't a problem. The problem is that the business threw this major web site build at their in-house Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before, let alone one as complex as this and basically they've screwed the pooch. I have no idea exactly when the project started but the first batch of contractors went in last year. There is a lot of code already and they are really under pressure to deliver quickly. It's barely 20% of the final product and its complete spaghetti already. I'm on my first task and what should have taken a day at most is now on day 3 and barely started. It took most of the first day to even figure out where to put any new code. They have taken multiple web frameworks and approaches and munged them altogether. Missing the fundamentals of each and using bits of each framework for various tasks. It runs sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowly. I would normally work through stuff like this and gradually improve things etc. But this re-write already needs a re-write. Due to how they have set things up gradually improving things just isn't an option. I honestly cannot see the project getting delivered to production. If it does get there it's going to be one holy nightmare to support, costly and no doubt very error prone. I know at least one other contractor on the team feels exactly the same as me. Everyone else seems to just be business as usual. Developer productivity is completely shot to pieces. The potential impact on the business is huge and expensive. I feel a responsibility to highlight my thoughts but I also have no idea who made some of the decisions or any of the historical politics. The feeling I get is an undercurrent of a few people knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it. I have no idea what to do or say at the moment so for me it's also going to be business as usual. I have no idea what the reaction would be to me saying anything. Nor who would be most offended or become defensive. The problem I have personally is that I feel adding to the mess is morally wrong. Not to mention that this is going to make my work life for the next however long extremely stressful and entirely unenjoyable. How have you guys dealt with these situations?
Jammer wrote:
How have you guys dealt with these situations?
Very badly... Daily... And take a deep breath before shouting at someone - you will need a lot of air to make it worth...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Hey All, So I've landed my new gig. The team is a mix of perms and contractors (I'm a contractor). The team is great, a really nice bunch of people. However ... The main product being ported to new tech is big and complex (I like complex, that isn't the problem) and legacy in places, that also isn't a problem. The problem is that the business threw this major web site build at their in-house Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before, let alone one as complex as this and basically they've screwed the pooch. I have no idea exactly when the project started but the first batch of contractors went in last year. There is a lot of code already and they are really under pressure to deliver quickly. It's barely 20% of the final product and its complete spaghetti already. I'm on my first task and what should have taken a day at most is now on day 3 and barely started. It took most of the first day to even figure out where to put any new code. They have taken multiple web frameworks and approaches and munged them altogether. Missing the fundamentals of each and using bits of each framework for various tasks. It runs sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowly. I would normally work through stuff like this and gradually improve things etc. But this re-write already needs a re-write. Due to how they have set things up gradually improving things just isn't an option. I honestly cannot see the project getting delivered to production. If it does get there it's going to be one holy nightmare to support, costly and no doubt very error prone. I know at least one other contractor on the team feels exactly the same as me. Everyone else seems to just be business as usual. Developer productivity is completely shot to pieces. The potential impact on the business is huge and expensive. I feel a responsibility to highlight my thoughts but I also have no idea who made some of the decisions or any of the historical politics. The feeling I get is an undercurrent of a few people knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it. I have no idea what to do or say at the moment so for me it's also going to be business as usual. I have no idea what the reaction would be to me saying anything. Nor who would be most offended or become defensive. The problem I have personally is that I feel adding to the mess is morally wrong. Not to mention that this is going to make my work life for the next however long extremely stressful and entirely unenjoyable. How have you guys dealt with these situations?
In those situations if I think there is a chance of improvement I will push for that, otherwise I just walk away
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Hey All, So I've landed my new gig. The team is a mix of perms and contractors (I'm a contractor). The team is great, a really nice bunch of people. However ... The main product being ported to new tech is big and complex (I like complex, that isn't the problem) and legacy in places, that also isn't a problem. The problem is that the business threw this major web site build at their in-house Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before, let alone one as complex as this and basically they've screwed the pooch. I have no idea exactly when the project started but the first batch of contractors went in last year. There is a lot of code already and they are really under pressure to deliver quickly. It's barely 20% of the final product and its complete spaghetti already. I'm on my first task and what should have taken a day at most is now on day 3 and barely started. It took most of the first day to even figure out where to put any new code. They have taken multiple web frameworks and approaches and munged them altogether. Missing the fundamentals of each and using bits of each framework for various tasks. It runs sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowly. I would normally work through stuff like this and gradually improve things etc. But this re-write already needs a re-write. Due to how they have set things up gradually improving things just isn't an option. I honestly cannot see the project getting delivered to production. If it does get there it's going to be one holy nightmare to support, costly and no doubt very error prone. I know at least one other contractor on the team feels exactly the same as me. Everyone else seems to just be business as usual. Developer productivity is completely shot to pieces. The potential impact on the business is huge and expensive. I feel a responsibility to highlight my thoughts but I also have no idea who made some of the decisions or any of the historical politics. The feeling I get is an undercurrent of a few people knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it. I have no idea what to do or say at the moment so for me it's also going to be business as usual. I have no idea what the reaction would be to me saying anything. Nor who would be most offended or become defensive. The problem I have personally is that I feel adding to the mess is morally wrong. Not to mention that this is going to make my work life for the next however long extremely stressful and entirely unenjoyable. How have you guys dealt with these situations?
I've been in your situation, i.e. seeing the train wreck approaching. First of all, be grateful you're a contractor, being employed on these kinds of projects just exacerbates the stress/moral strain even further. The project I was on went through some further steps that you will experience too: 1) Calling in more expensive consultants/contractors that are "experts" in fixing doomed projects. But this is just the chinese army technique all over again. 2) Having all-hands off-site meetings to discuss what's wrong with the project and how to fix it. This will turn into a project of its own, sort of recursive train wreck :-) I faced some of your moral angst but the money was to good to walk away from. How did it end? Management "solved it" the same way I think yours will do: by shrinking/removing features as much as possible, so the 1.0 was a "bare-bones" release, and promising those missing features would be implemented in a later version 2.0.
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Hey All, So I've landed my new gig. The team is a mix of perms and contractors (I'm a contractor). The team is great, a really nice bunch of people. However ... The main product being ported to new tech is big and complex (I like complex, that isn't the problem) and legacy in places, that also isn't a problem. The problem is that the business threw this major web site build at their in-house Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before, let alone one as complex as this and basically they've screwed the pooch. I have no idea exactly when the project started but the first batch of contractors went in last year. There is a lot of code already and they are really under pressure to deliver quickly. It's barely 20% of the final product and its complete spaghetti already. I'm on my first task and what should have taken a day at most is now on day 3 and barely started. It took most of the first day to even figure out where to put any new code. They have taken multiple web frameworks and approaches and munged them altogether. Missing the fundamentals of each and using bits of each framework for various tasks. It runs sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowly. I would normally work through stuff like this and gradually improve things etc. But this re-write already needs a re-write. Due to how they have set things up gradually improving things just isn't an option. I honestly cannot see the project getting delivered to production. If it does get there it's going to be one holy nightmare to support, costly and no doubt very error prone. I know at least one other contractor on the team feels exactly the same as me. Everyone else seems to just be business as usual. Developer productivity is completely shot to pieces. The potential impact on the business is huge and expensive. I feel a responsibility to highlight my thoughts but I also have no idea who made some of the decisions or any of the historical politics. The feeling I get is an undercurrent of a few people knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it. I have no idea what to do or say at the moment so for me it's also going to be business as usual. I have no idea what the reaction would be to me saying anything. Nor who would be most offended or become defensive. The problem I have personally is that I feel adding to the mess is morally wrong. Not to mention that this is going to make my work life for the next however long extremely stressful and entirely unenjoyable. How have you guys dealt with these situations?
I have been in somewhat chaotic projects, but then it was widely agreed that it was a mess. Since you talk about morals, I assume below that you are willing to risk losing the contract. If there is a "product owner" that carries some weight, talk to him. But maybe the "product owner" just obeys the suits. Then you have to talk to the suits. They will not grok frameworks etc they might understand "huge financial risk", make sure you have a concrete example of that risk, not just "huge" but a specific number e.g. "2 million". Tell them "you dudes are taking a big risk, do you really want to do that?" Make sure there is a record of you having said that. But to say that you need to provide an alternative: sounds that they need to hire a bunch of web savvy people. Maybe there are better tasks for the existing staff, without downsizing. Or just bite the bullet. Are you hired as a dev, or as an architect with a higher level of responsability? Or just... walk. Good Luck
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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Hey All, So I've landed my new gig. The team is a mix of perms and contractors (I'm a contractor). The team is great, a really nice bunch of people. However ... The main product being ported to new tech is big and complex (I like complex, that isn't the problem) and legacy in places, that also isn't a problem. The problem is that the business threw this major web site build at their in-house Windows Forms developers that had never built a web site before, let alone one as complex as this and basically they've screwed the pooch. I have no idea exactly when the project started but the first batch of contractors went in last year. There is a lot of code already and they are really under pressure to deliver quickly. It's barely 20% of the final product and its complete spaghetti already. I'm on my first task and what should have taken a day at most is now on day 3 and barely started. It took most of the first day to even figure out where to put any new code. They have taken multiple web frameworks and approaches and munged them altogether. Missing the fundamentals of each and using bits of each framework for various tasks. It runs sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowly. I would normally work through stuff like this and gradually improve things etc. But this re-write already needs a re-write. Due to how they have set things up gradually improving things just isn't an option. I honestly cannot see the project getting delivered to production. If it does get there it's going to be one holy nightmare to support, costly and no doubt very error prone. I know at least one other contractor on the team feels exactly the same as me. Everyone else seems to just be business as usual. Developer productivity is completely shot to pieces. The potential impact on the business is huge and expensive. I feel a responsibility to highlight my thoughts but I also have no idea who made some of the decisions or any of the historical politics. The feeling I get is an undercurrent of a few people knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it. I have no idea what to do or say at the moment so for me it's also going to be business as usual. I have no idea what the reaction would be to me saying anything. Nor who would be most offended or become defensive. The problem I have personally is that I feel adding to the mess is morally wrong. Not to mention that this is going to make my work life for the next however long extremely stressful and entirely unenjoyable. How have you guys dealt with these situations?
You are a contractor, not an employee of the company. Their problems are not your problems (at least not directly). As a contractor, your only concern is to fulfill your contractual obligations as efficiently as possible. So do the job you have been assigned under your contract to the best of your abilities. Nothing more, nothing less. Assuming you are contracted as a dev, it is not your job to fix their poor design -- unless of course you agreed under the contract to provide design review, design services, or architecture services. In that case, it would of course be your job to comment on their poor design. Of course, as you do your contractually agreed work, document everything. Because of their poor design, there is a risk that your work could be criticised. By documenting everything, you will have evidence that your you were providing the best effort possible under the terms of your contract within the environment your customer provided. Ultimately, always remember: Contractor != employee. You're running an independent business and so your concerns are very different to those of an employee of your customer.
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I've been in your situation, i.e. seeing the train wreck approaching. First of all, be grateful you're a contractor, being employed on these kinds of projects just exacerbates the stress/moral strain even further. The project I was on went through some further steps that you will experience too: 1) Calling in more expensive consultants/contractors that are "experts" in fixing doomed projects. But this is just the chinese army technique all over again. 2) Having all-hands off-site meetings to discuss what's wrong with the project and how to fix it. This will turn into a project of its own, sort of recursive train wreck :-) I faced some of your moral angst but the money was to good to walk away from. How did it end? Management "solved it" the same way I think yours will do: by shrinking/removing features as much as possible, so the 1.0 was a "bare-bones" release, and promising those missing features would be implemented in a later version 2.0.
Never head of the "Chinese army technique", so I looked it up and almost spit all over my display!
Quote:
Mongolian Hordes technique: n. [poss. from the Sixties counterculture expression Mongolian clusterfuck for a public orgy] Development by gang bang. Implies that large numbers of inexperienced programmers are being put on a job better performed by a few skilled ones (but see bazaar). Also called Chinese Army technique; see also Brooks's Law.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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You are a contractor, not an employee of the company. Their problems are not your problems (at least not directly). As a contractor, your only concern is to fulfill your contractual obligations as efficiently as possible. So do the job you have been assigned under your contract to the best of your abilities. Nothing more, nothing less. Assuming you are contracted as a dev, it is not your job to fix their poor design -- unless of course you agreed under the contract to provide design review, design services, or architecture services. In that case, it would of course be your job to comment on their poor design. Of course, as you do your contractually agreed work, document everything. Because of their poor design, there is a risk that your work could be criticised. By documenting everything, you will have evidence that your you were providing the best effort possible under the terms of your contract within the environment your customer provided. Ultimately, always remember: Contractor != employee. You're running an independent business and so your concerns are very different to those of an employee of your customer.
I second what Mark said. When decisions are made I don't agree with or mystify me, I just remind myself I'm here to help. Living that dream in a limited fashion at the moment. Since you just started, you probably have zero credibility, and any criticism can easily be misinterpreted as crapping on other contractors / employees. Comments like this need to stay private.
Charlie Gilley <italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape... "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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You are a contractor, not an employee of the company. Their problems are not your problems (at least not directly). As a contractor, your only concern is to fulfill your contractual obligations as efficiently as possible. So do the job you have been assigned under your contract to the best of your abilities. Nothing more, nothing less. Assuming you are contracted as a dev, it is not your job to fix their poor design -- unless of course you agreed under the contract to provide design review, design services, or architecture services. In that case, it would of course be your job to comment on their poor design. Of course, as you do your contractually agreed work, document everything. Because of their poor design, there is a risk that your work could be criticised. By documenting everything, you will have evidence that your you were providing the best effort possible under the terms of your contract within the environment your customer provided. Ultimately, always remember: Contractor != employee. You're running an independent business and so your concerns are very different to those of an employee of your customer.
