Should I stay or should I go now?

[Numpty]

I have just had a screaming match at an IT Requirements Manager at ClientCo and stormed off in a huff. I am absolutely furious with this outfit and, right now, feel like taking advantage of my 5 days notice period.

They gave me a project six weeks ago for which a supplier has been identified and a technical solution already defined.

I was initially tasked with knocking up some documentation to vindicate the decisions but am now completely wrapped up in the red tape of the internal processes. Nobody will do anything without authorised documents but nobody will review documents, let alone authorise them.

The senior management make impossible demands then expect us to write the business case to defend their decisions. I have challenged that behaviour and been warned off doing it again.

The IT section will not sanction the technical solution they came up with because they won't authorise the requirements because they were written to match the imposed solution.

I am being blamed for not having any project documentation in place for six months ago when the supplier selection started - 5 months before I was involved.

I will have to write the project reports at the end of the month explaining why the multi-million pound benefits cannot be achieved and it has already been made clear by the programme manager that he will publicly blame me.

The latest run-in was because I got sent to see this IT Requirements Manager for a telling off about the quality of the requirements I had written because they hinted at the right solution. He sniffed at my 53 page document as not being detailed enough. Yet I can describe the entire actual technical solution in one sentence but am not allowed to!

This is just the latest in a long line of internal obstacles and workshy gits who are determined to prevent anything getting done. And who gets complained at for not making progress? Us project managers, of course.

They have been mucking me about with timesheets since the start (I haven't seen last week's yet and that is normal). That doesn't help either.


Jobserve reckons there's about 65 project manager contracts a day paying over £400 per day. I've got PRINCE2 and can do government work.

Do I exercise the termination clause and start looking, or keep taking the tulip until they sack me?

[The Lone Gunman]

<snip>

Find another job, take 2 weeks leave to coincide with receiving payment, give notice once paid, dont go back.

[Xenophon]

give notice once paid

If the situation really is as stinky as described, this is sound advice.

[Numpty]

Find another job, take 2 weeks leave to coincide with receiving payment, give notice once paid, dont go back.

2 weeks leave? You're funny.

The occasional day is OK but leave as such is not permitted. It is made very clear that attendance at programme, PMO, board, progress, assurance, quality meetings and management briefings is mandatory. There is at least one of those every day, often three.

This really is a crap gig.

[Bluebird]

How many sets of requirements are there?

You refer to 2 sets, one your wrote and one that describes the solution.

Shouldn't you get a BA to write the requirements ?

[chicane]

Unpleasant as it sounds, it could be that ClientCo saw this coming and deliberately took you on with the intention of making you a scapegoat for the failure of the project. Make sure you've got an audit trail that covers your behind, and get out of there.

[Numpty]

How many sets of requirements are there?

You refer to 2 sets, one your wrote and one that describes the solution.

The solution design was sorted out informally and verbally prior to my involvement.

No effort or money will be spent on implementation until the requirements are signed off. IT wont sign them off; the reason varies each time.

Shouldn't you get a BA to write the requirements ?

What business analyst would that be? Oh yeah, the one requested in every Programme Board report since January. And the project manager's job description is, of course, "Everything Else."

[Numpty]

Unpleasant as it sounds, it could be that ClientCo saw this coming and deliberately took you on with the intention of making you a scapegoat for the failure of the project.

Definitely possible.

I shall wander back to the Office of Misery, sit at the Desk of Woe and go back to doing chargeable stuff (muttering and swearing at my desk is chargeable, reading professional advice and guidance from you lot is not!)

By 6 o'clock I shall be in a position whereby I can leap either way, shall go home and see what the poll result says. My weekend then will either be:

a) write the requirements again, then work on the artificial Business Case & PID and comms plan etc. so that I don't have any weekend at all (as was originally planned)

b) bombard the pimps with CVs.

Decide my life for me, people! I'm too to think straight.

[blacjac]

Definitely possible.

I shall wander back to the Office of Misery, sit at the Desk of Woe and go back to doing chargeable stuff (muttering and swearing at my desk is chargeable, reading professional advice and guidance from you lot is not!)

By 6 o'clock I shall be in a position whereby I can leap either way, shall go home and see what the poll result says. My weekend then will either be:

a) write the requirements again, then work on the artificial Business Case & PID and comms plan etc. so that I don't have any weekend at all (as was originally planned)

b) bombard the pimps with CVs.

Decide my life for me, people! I'm too to think straight.

Of course it is

[DaveB]

Go sick instead of taking a holiday. Or claim a family crisis. Anything that gets you out of there for the requisit period.

If you are working weekends at home for this gig then it's not worth it.