This is a true story. The company name
has been changed.
Background
The Acme Corporation had a
well-established application that was used by large and medium-sized companies.
After the most recent release of the product, several of the largest customers
complained about poor response time. Company management decided that correcting
the performance problem was a priority. It would be corrected and released to
customers before any new features were developed for the product.
The analyst from Technical Services reviewed
the problem reports, diagnosed the problem, and proposed a solution. The Vice
President assigned a project manager to develop a plan for correction of the
problem.
Based on the diagnosis and the proposed
solution, the project manager developed a high-level project scope and plan.
The project to correct the response time problem would take approximately a
year to complete. It would require ten developers, plus testers, documentation,
and preparation of a new release. The cost would be well over a million
dollars.
The Vice President approved the project
immediately. The project manager proceeded with the detailed planning of the
project. A senior developer was assigned to determine the specific development
requirements.
Where’s the report?
The developer began to review the
relevant programs to determine the specific work needed. As she reviewed the
programs, she began to wonder if the problem to be solved had been correctly
determined. Based on how the software was designed, the diagnosis seemed rather
odd.
The developer asked the Technical
Services analyst for a copy of the report outlining the problem assessment. The
analyst was vague, and said he was unsure where the document might have been
filed. Follow-ups led the developer to believe that the technical analyst was
trying to avoid having to produce the report.
The developer then asked the project
manager to intervene and obtain a copy of the technical services report. The
project manager made a request, but the report was not provided.
The determined lack of response led the
developer to become suspicious that the technical analyst had taken a short cut
and not done any proper analysis of the problem after all. The project manager
was reluctant to press further, as he thought the developer was concerned about
technical details outside her area of expertise.
Analysis of the problem
The developer was determined to figure
out whether the diagnosis was correct or not. However, there was no time to do
the technical analysis, as she was assigned full-time to do the detailed
analysis based on the problem definition and the solution provided.
The developer decided to figure it out
over the weekend. She worked both days, using a test environment to test her
own theory on what needed to be fixed in the software. At the end of the two
days, she had proved that her hypothesis of the problem was correct, and had
two potential solutions. In addition,
she had proven that the solution proposed by the technical analyst would not
solve the problem, and would very likely make the performance even slower.
The developer met with the project
manager, who was skeptical. How could this be? The project had already been
approved, and now the developer was telling him it was unnecessary? However, as
he reviewed the analysis the developer had done, he realized the technical
analyst may not have not done a proper diagnosis.
The project manager insisted on seeing
the report from the technical analyst, who finally admitted that no real
analysis had been done. The technical analyst had guessed at the problem and
solution based on the customer reports alone.
Saving time, resources, money
One of the developer’s solutions was
chosen to solve the response time problem. It required very little effort in
addition to the work the developer had already done.
More than a million dollars and a dozen
individuals were freed up to work on new features for the next software release.
The customers would have their application fixed within a few weeks, instead of
waiting for a year.
Conclusion
The technical analyst had not done any
analysis, but didn’t want to admit it – the systems equivalent of “The dog ate
my homework”.
The project manager should have
insisted that the technical analyst produce a copy of the report when the
developer asked for assistance.
The project manager would not have to
be qualified to understand the technical details in the report, but certainly
would be able to recognize if the report was done or not.
Copyright
2015 Debbie Gallagher
