| Scott Kinney 2004-06-24, 1:21 am |
| "Dirk Thierbach" <dthierbach@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:7ctbq1-oab.ln1@ID-7776.user.uni-berlin.de...
>
>
>
OK, so the basic situation is that work has been
divided between two (geographically) distributed
teams. You, on one team, want to change an interface
that the other team is responsible for....
I've looked at this from 3 perspectives;
1) that of the overall project design that might
be in place if set up by a trained project
manager, 2)that of the project manager who's
had this request dumped in their lap, 3) a simple
gut reaction.
All 3 perspectives share an emphasis on communication;
to greater or lesser degrees of formality, and with
or without certain data components.
1.) Stepping back a second, the work itself did
not get divided between the two teams with an
explicit agreement between the two. That implies
that there is some kind of design, some kind
of hierarchy, some kind of spec in place.
And now you want to change something. OK.
You will have to take responsibility for
selling this change. Fieldstripping it down
to a minimum you'd need to explain:
A. the benefit of the change you want
to make to the project's objectives.
(in other words, how will doing this bring
us closer to the project goals? does it
meet a functional requirement, speed something
up, reduce costs, etc.)
B. the impact on other developers in the project
who use or rely on the same interface. How much
re-work will they have as a result?
C. the impact on other users of that interface
that are currently running in production. How
much/many other applications or functions will
be affected by the change you want to make?
You see where this is going, I hope, the
change you want to make has to pay its way.
And you have to secure the agreement of your
teammates that it pays its way.
How you figure those things out is up
to you. You can get other teammates involved,
you can talk to the guys who have responsibility
for the interface, you can talk to operations guys
outside the project....
The result is going to be a balancing act
between the benefits and impacts. It may
be a good idea, but not good enough to pay
for all the ensuing mischief.
2.) From the project manager's standpoint:
I'd be deeply suspicious of someone who
came to me directly with a request like
"make them change the interface this way,
I need it to be different."
Suspicion aside for the moment; I'd ask
all the same benefit and impact information,
so you're not off that hook.
Suspicion back on for the moment; I'd
be pretty bent out of shape if you hadn't
already talked it through with the other
people involved. (Partly that's personal,
I hate being the playground monitor for
soi disant adults.) If there's a conflict
that you can resolve, I can certainly
facilitate a resolution, and if I can't,
I can make a decision...
3.)My gut reaction: "So why haven't
you talked to the folks on the other
team about this?"
|