Anticlue

It wasn’t enough is enough.

Had the meeting on Friday about the resource conflict. It was a good meeting, although I had a couple of revelations during the meeting. The resource hadn’t done an enough is enough in the team meeting as I had assumed. What actually had happened was this.

At the beginning of the month, I had scheduled a quick 30-minute daily build meeting between all building resources. The meeting was to create a time to chat for all builders, discuss issues and get quick status with where the project was and if the team needed anything. We meet daily, all via a conference line. This was people can also try something quick on the computer if needed.

I had made it my mission to type up minutes and distribute the minutes to the group and management daily. I tried to have someone else type up the minutes, but we don’t have that type of resource spread, or I don’t have enough pull with the secretarial staff. The minutes detail discussions, decisions, and next steps. They also plainly stated what was done and what was missed.

The problem is that this resource was overscheduled, and well the director finally realized it. I had asked for a full-time resource. I only got one dedicated 25% of her time. The resource silently worked a lot of voluntary overtime to get things to where they needed to be. So the director’s solution was to yank the resource for the other project, and offered no alternatives. Every minute that resource spends or doesn’t spend on this project directly either shortens it or elongates the project. The resource is working the critical path.

The other problem was with the design, even though the interface group approved the interface design. Now apparently, they need some training in how to do real-time hl7 charges to a file within Open Link.

My main problem with this situation, is that I was offered no alternatives and the situation wasn’t set up to be a negotiation. It was leave me scenario, and now I’m trying to brainstorm as to alternatives so the project once again isn’t held up. When the resource risk hits, it sure expands the project timeline.