I was pulling my hair out on Sunday afternoon for about five hours to SWAG the internal development of a large database system that we can essentially buy off the shelf — and which everyone acknowledges would be better off so bought, but senior management wants to know (always) how much it would be for us to do so instead (i.e., assurance that we’re not buying a Mercedes when we could make our own Tercel).<\/p>\n
Since every step of the process involved making an array of assumptions and generalizations (since actually scoping out the development of such a system would be a multi-week, multi-person effort, vs. the few days I had to do it by my lonesome), I couldn’t use much of our standard costing and scheduling methodology. And rather than spell out all the calculations, I simply presented a nicely formatted extract of the numbers to the Boss Man and hoped he wouldn’t ask for too much detail (since every detail would be debatable). <\/p>\n
So I was pleased at this response:<\/p>\n
Well this is the most acceptable “breach of process” I have ever seen. The fact that it is understandable and reasonable helps tremendously<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Of course, he then proceeded to pepper me with questions, but, yay. Almost made losing four-plus hours of my Sunday worthwhile.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was pulling my hair out on Sunday afternoon for about five hours to SWAG the internal development of a large database system that we can essentially buy off the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-job-jollies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38252,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/14\/looking-for-a-web-developersupport-person.html","url_meta":{"origin":9016,"position":0},"title":"Looking for a web \u00a0developer\/support person","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 14-Jul-13 2:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So doing my part here for online correspondent community, many of whom seem to be of a techie\/web persuasion. \u00a0My company (a major multi-national professional services firm) is looking for an additional someone for [cuts and pastes and trims down from the huge job listing doc]:- Development of new web-based\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24401,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/09\/underfunded-education-in-colorado.html","url_meta":{"origin":9016,"position":1},"title":"Underfunded education in Colorado","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Dec-11 9:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I suspect Katherine will be in college before this gets settled in the courts. #ddtb Embedded Link Denver court decision in education suit says Colorado is underfunding schools by billions - The Denver Post In a ruling that could have multi-billion dollar consequences for Colorado\u001bs budget, a Denver judge ruled\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15579,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/08\/13\/the-sidewalks-must-roll.html","url_meta":{"origin":9016,"position":2},"title":"The sidewalks must roll …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Aug-09 9:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cool New Scientist article on the technology, promise, and ultimate failure of moving sidewalk systems. BY 1902, New Yorkers had finally had enough of the rush-hour crush on the Brooklyn Bridge. Mass transit lines converged at both sides of the East river, disgorging thousands of travellers onto already packed streetcars\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24349,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/08\/there-is-no-100-safe-system.html","url_meta":{"origin":9016,"position":3},"title":"There Is No 100% Safe System","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Dec-11 1:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"That seems to be the conclusion in the (fascinating) article below, and it makes frightening sense. The reasons being:1. We can identify and ameliorate a lot of single-point failures, but in doing so we make systems more complex and more prone to multi-point failures.2. Pilots are human. Humans make mistakes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10643,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/12\/04\/prime_directive_real_esta.html","url_meta":{"origin":9016,"position":4},"title":"Prime (Directive) Real Estate","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 4-Dec-06 10:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"A massive map of the United Federation of Planets. Like most translations of multi-decade, multi-creator, multi-media worlds, don't poke too closely at the details for consistency. (via GeekPress)...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137303,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/10\/where-to-go-after-google-plus.html","url_meta":{"origin":9016,"position":5},"title":"Where to go after Google Plus?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Oct-18 4:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So I've spent a fair amount of time the past couple of days investigating the two most commonly identified alternatives: MeWe and Pluspora.(Note that everyone's suggestions on the matter always start with \"HELL NO, I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE NEAR FACEBOOK ...\" and I feel largely the same way, so ...)Both\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/optimize-google-plus5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/optimize-google-plus5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/optimize-google-plus5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}