Carpe Diem

Good Evening my friends.

Work continues to be a very busy thing for me. I feel like I had a breakthrough of sorts today, however: Indulge me for a moment.

The BIG project is being managed using a tool called "Microsoft Project". This is basically an overgrown spreadsheet that lets you set up lots of dependencies between tasks, and is a relatively sane way to keep track of 1000 different things that need to get done in a limited amount of time. My predecessor had a very strained relationship with this tool, and with the plan he was managing.

So every week, the plan would be shown to all of the managers, and he would wave his arms at it and say "yeah, it's not right, but the tool is just wrong. Things aren't so bad". That sort of thing works for 1-2 times, but after 10 times, it got annoying for all involved. He is no longer around. But the plan was not in good shape, and it showed a go-live date a good month after the date we are actually planning on. When I took over, I did my best to update the plan, but I started to notice that there really WAS something off with it.

At this week's meeting, I found my self looking at the plan in the big meeting, and almost found myself saying "yeah it's not right, but the tool is just wrong". But I stopped myself. Instead I said "the plan is not right but next week it will be. In the meantime, here are the reasons the plan is off, and how I plan to fix them".

And I took CONTROL of the plan. I went through it, and corrected a bunch of bad linkages, I updated a bunch of old tasks, and reorganized the priorities. And now it does reflect my reality, and I can get this monkey OFF my back.

Fresh off of that administrative "high", I came home to find an email from a stranger. A reference from my SISTER, for a guy who is looking to recruit an officer for his high tech startup. At first I thought 'whatever, I'm busy', but politely inquired for more info.

Turns out, this guy is putting together a massive data mining project startup, very likely to be acquired if done correctly, which maps PRECISELY to skills I have. Which is sort of eerie - like the position was MADE for me. AND he is actually the real deal, having build a couple of companies you might have actually heard of, and raised millions in development capital.

So look for more info on that one!

The life of Jimmy, not a dull moment!