(Un)Traceable
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 11:26PM 
In the realm of software development, programmers are always criticized for delivering a product with missed requirements. More often than not, they are criticized for missing the target all together. And that's the bullshit I've been wrapped up in the past month.
Product requirements come from my team. Nothing, and I mean nothing, gets past me without my approval. That said, my requirements were fool-proof. (Yes, I'm that good.) We've been in the design phase for the past few weeks. At this stage in the project, my job is to make sure the dev and design teams are on schedule and meeting requirements. I had an initial review, a secondary review, a pre-approaval review, and a final review. Overkill? YES! But necessary.
I received a meeting invitation from the Design Lead for a final solutions design and prototype preview. According to the project schedule, we're on target. The two hour session was scheduled for 10 am in the tech design war room. The room has four walls of floor to ceiling white board space.
I entered the room full of Indian cocks and one white 'Dick.' Dick is the Design Lead who was going to take me through the preview. (NOTE: Key operative word...'was.') The floor to ceiling white boards were covered with any and every visio shape with crazy connectors and frail stick men all over the fucking place. They do this to try to confuse me. (Not going to work...idiots.) Dick proceeds and opens the session with a five minute intro and overview and turns it over to BJ, a senior designer. Enough of the fluff, let's get this shit going! BJ proceeded. Ten minutes in and I interrupted.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa...."
"Did you have a question?"
"Yeah. What the [fuck] is this?"
"What do you mean?"
"This is NOT AT ALL what our requirements stated."
Dick and BJ immediately began rustling through documents while the Indians flipped open their laptops to do the same thing. Granted we were only ten minutes into the review session but every single use case, right from jump, was wrong! I noticed Dick and BJ having an exchange of words. I pretended not to listen. In a nutshell, Dick was stressing that BJ was making him look bad in front of me. Dick doesn't like looking bad in front of me for a few obvious reasons:
- He's a dude.
- I'm a chick.
- He has a crush on me.
- He can't look bad in front of a chick, let alone a chick he has a crush on.
I guess you can say Dick is all up my ass! (Queue snare drum.)
I cleared my throat to break up the side-bar convo going on and turned to BJ.
"What document did you use to develop the design?"
"The SAS." (Solutions Approach Specifications)
"And what did you use to develop the SAS?"
"The functional use cases."
"Where did you get the functional use cases?"
"The BRD." (Business Requirements Doc"
"That's MY document. Who developed the use cases?"
"Ahh yes, of course. Offshore. Makes sense."
"Where's the traceability matrix?"
"That's not my deliverable."
"Dick?" (long pause) "There's no traceability matrix, is there?"
Dick gives me a re-assuring nod that a traceability matrix does, in fact, exist, though he knows I know he's bullshitting. Even worse, he knows I think he's an idiot though he does everything he can to not look like an idiot in front of me because he has a crush on me, which he doesn't think I know.
[Time check...10:20 a.m.]
The meeting ended with a "to be continued." As furious as I was, I didn't let them know I was furious, which scared them even more. Back to the drawing boards fellas'!
Reader Comments (5)
COOL!
You're cool.
Ha! :D Should have gotten all up on Dick.. probably would have gotten all stiff and scared.. lol *where is that damn snare*
Too many dicks and cocks. Need more vag. Not enough vag, the dicks and cocks can't think straight. One vag, too much competition. Dicks and cocks need an outlet so that they can think straight. Maybe you need to take one for the team. I mean, take several. If you want them to think straight. Just a suggestion.
wouldn't have happened in a SCRUM project!!
Damn, I'm glad I don't work for you. Sounds like a red tape nightmare. Plans and back-up plans and plans for more plans.