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I was reminded of this recent event reading Kent's post 5 Project Management Skills Every Developer Should Have[^]
My coworker (I'll use "C" for their name) and I were recently asked by the project manager (for context, he was a very new hire, but that doesn't imply he was new to the field of project management) assigned to our project, "Can you and C put due dates on all of the tasks for this project?"
My one line answer. "No"
The silence was deafening.
After the pregnant silence gave birth, the obvious question "Why not???" was asked.
Well, because:
1. Our daily activities include a variety of other unpredictable tasks that are constantly shifting in priority (aside - such is the life in a small company. Isn't that the definition of Agile?  )
2. We are working with undocumented verbal specifications where new information is provided every week in the weekly meeting with the client and often previous requirements change slightly. (aside - we're an Agile team, right?)
3. The nature of the work requires interfacing with third party API's that are finicky and difficult to map their data responses into something we understand how to map to our fields. (aside - everyone is Agile nowadays, right?)
4. Your own (the client's) dataset doesn't have all the information we need and we're waiting for you to update your datasets. (aside - are THEY Agile???)
5. To put a due date on something, yes, we can estimate the number of hours, on average, per day that we can work on the project, but a due date means figuring out how many hours the task will take, and we're dealing with some unknowns that make that impossible at the moment. (Agile!) Once we have removed those unknowns, it may become possible to predict the hours.
Of course, the senior project manager started off the whole conversation with the typical Dilbert-esque management speak: "I am here to facilitate -- if you need something from the client, let me know and I'll make it happen." I've been around the block enough times to know what utter BS that is.
So the manager decided that what his male ego needed was a daily 30 minute conference call with moi and C to review, each and every day (except weekends) the status of each ticket. Riiiight. So we complained to our direct manager, who "managed" - managed to get that stopped. I mean really, the guy can just look at the ticket to see the status, right?
The irony is that this project manager went from being a bull in a China shop to a mouse - no facilitation, no responses to our emails when we actually need some information from the client that he could "facilitate", in fact, no communication at all except an hour before the scheduled weekly meetings "Are you guys ready?"
It's amazing, the Power of No (apologies to Eckhart Tolle)
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For a moment there I thought I was the 'C' in this tale of woe!
I have had almost identical experiences over the last few weeks, so I feel your pain.
HoweverQuote: (aside - everyone is Agile nowadays, right?)
No.
One size does not fit all.
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CHill60 wrote: One size does not fit all.
Tell that to the airplane sits 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I love that word.
We live and work in a transient resort town.
Yesterday a fresh (they get off the greyhound daily) 1/2 wit was rolling a trash bin from the local thrift store past our shop.
On the way back it stopped rolling right in front of our screen door. (ruh-row).
"Hi, I found a google pixel phone under the chairlifts (skiing) and want to borrow a computer to remove the password. Do you have one?"
No. - your not virus infecting one of my pcs I thought.
The silence was also deafening.
"I'm helping W!" - (the thrift shop owner).
I just stared him down.
He went on to enumerate all the reasons why I should do this for him and when I seemed unconvinced, he left.
But I tell you, from project managers to street people (indistinguishable at times)
one way to turn their disdain for types like you to respect, is the good old , NO! - at all probable costs.
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Ron Anders wrote: Hi, I found a google pixel phone under the chairlifts (skiing) and want to borrow a computer to remove the password.
Sheesh.
Security (yours) reasons aside, for starters, the phone isn't his to remove the password from. That should've shut him up right there and then.
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The best project manager I worked with used to take my estimates and treble them - the estimates were then generally accurate.
A decent project manager will ask for an estimate knowing that it's really a bit of a guess and communicate that when asking the question.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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The Scotty principle - always multiply your estimates by a factor of four. How else can you maintain your reputation as a miracle worker? 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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I was told one a little different: "double the number and increase the units".
Two days becomes four weeks.
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Never, ever, met one like that.... 
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I have come across a few project managers who are like that, project managers who want to help the people they work with are not that rare.
I sometimes wonder if the contempt some devs feel for some project managers is what is partly responsible for the occasional problems between project managers and devs.
I have generally found that if as a dev I take the time to explain the complexity and issues involved then most project managers are quite grateful, understanding and do their best to support me as a dev.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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GuyThiebaut wrote: if as a dev I take the time to explain the complexity and issues involved then most project managers are quite grateful, understanding and do their best to support me as a dev.
This has been hit and miss for me in the past. Some PMs really do care about this, others don't. If you don't make them look good, they couldn't care less about your problems. Often times promises are made there are discussions with management / clients that happen without consulting the delivery team, and then they don't want to listen to anything that makes them look bad.
In my experience, some are little more than task admins. They come with a list of tasks asking "Is task x done yet?" and move on. But I have had those that really care about enabling the delivery team, and those are to be treasured.
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I use pi as a multiplier ... it sounds much more scientific when I explain how I adjusted the estimate and it gives even more wiggle room.
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What a pity! You should have come up with some due dates.
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by" DNA
Mircea
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Marc Clifton wrote: . We are working with undocumented verbal specifications where new information is provided every week in the weekly meeting with the client and often previous requirements change slightly. (aside - we're an Agile team, right?)
This is really the core problem, right?
Plus, that may be what some company or many companies think Agile is (running around with no idea what your doing and having your tasks change and be re-prioritized constantly) but it is not. But, that's a much longer story.
Maybe you should tell C that when he documents the verbal specs and keeps them in change control so you can view the changes over time, then you would be able to give him better estimates.
Software can be extremely easy when you know what your building.
Alas, we rarely get to know what we are building. 
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I work in an agile environment and we don't have specifications but we do have user stories.
I am not completely sold on user stories, as I like to know exactly what is required of me.
However they do have the advantage that they help specify what the user wants to do, why they want to do it and what outcome they want - which leaves a certain amount of creativity to the developer to fill in the rest or chat with the person who write the user story.
There are places where user stories are probably not suitable such as medical devices/equipment and avionics.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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GuyThiebaut wrote: I work in an agile environment and we don't have specifications but we do have user stories.
Yes, I think User Stories are good too. They are a balance that the engineering team must understand.
They help define what the user wants to a certain level and are very good.
The dev team or single dev takes the shot and makes it work as best they understand.
The product team tries it out (so difficult to get them to really do this) since they should know best what needs to change. If they can't describe that to the dev then the dev's shot at it must be considered final.
however, everyone has to understand that when a dev is getting a thing to work and there are requirements gaps then the dev is the final answer while development is actively occurring (in the sprint). Sure later when everyone reviews it that could mean another iteration to fix it the way they think it should be. That's fine.
But this is also why Agile may not work on teams where people really eventually only attempting to escape blame and point the finger at the person who is ultimately responsible and must take the fall.
Agile requires that there is an actual team who cares for the final product and the other members. If you don't have that -- and a LOT of places don't -- then Agile is as bound to fail as all other Process Methdologies...or more so.
Sounds like the way your team does it works well. Our team does this too and we like Agile fairly well, though there are other challenges too.
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A company I once worked for wanted to outsource a project to a team in Romania.
So, three managers (also the owners of the company) get on a flight to meet the team and discuss the project for three whole days.
When they get back, one of them asks me "can you make an estimation for the project?"
So obviously I ask if the remote team shouldn't make an estimation since they would be building it.
They did make an estimation, but my manager didn't trust it because it was only one or two months away, which they were never going to make, and now he had more confidence in my estimations.
So I aks him how many developers there were on the project.
He didn't know 
I asked him what the hell they talked about if they didn't talk about (believable) estimates and size of the team.
He answered something like "other things, but not that."
So I asked him how the hell he expected me to plan something I don't know anything about.
His reply was "I know it's just guess work, so just guess"
So I "guessed" their original estimate would be accurate, but he wanted another guess
I think I answered something like "In that case I guess they'll have a hundred developers so they'll be done by tomorrow", but that wasn't the guess he wanted to hear either
It was hands down one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had 
Ultimately, the only correct guess, and maybe you've already guessed it, was "never"
I left the company a year later and another year later they abandoned the project and lost the customer.
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You calculate / compile "function points" and using a "gearing factor" (per language), calculate total man-hours based on historical output per FP (one needs in-house FP stats or an industry estimate). That's the number management gets. How many people they budget is then their problem.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Yeah, but this wasn't about hours, but when we could deliver to the customer.
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Ah, yes. The old outsource because you're not smart enough to understand the underlying problems.
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Yup, I sent a "no" to my boss yesterday. Again.
If he wants me to produce "CSV files", I'm going to produce proper "CSV files", e.g. ones which Excel recognizes as "CSV" as it's the de facto Standard for "CSV".
He, of course, replied that I should use vertical bars rather than commas because the whack-jobs downstream are using a tool which can't read CSV! In fairness, Microsoft's BCP utility can't read CSV either, but these people are supposed to be developers. And so it goes around again.
Some uber-whack-job up above must have read a blog post about how good this tool is and dictated that everyone across the enterprise needs to stop using what works and switch to this one. piece of crap. Hey, it's expensive, it must be good! 
And, yeah, the same uber-whack-jobs up above have also dictated that everyone needs to use "Scrum" even though every word out of their mouths proves that they have not the first clue what "Scrum" is. 
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You make the "value" of the delimiter an option; reading and writing.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: e.g. ones which Excel recognizes as "CSV" as it's the de facto Standard for "CSV".
That can bring problems... I am in the CSV world at the moment too, and it is a pity because German Excel wants "," for decimal separation, but c++ wants "." for decimal separator.
Having a:
Line 1_1; Line 1_2;
2 empty
Line 3_1; Line 3_2; Line 3_3; Line 3_4;
Line 4_1; Line 4_2; Line 4_3; Line 4_4;
Line x_1; Line x_2; Line x_3; Line x_4;
Opening in Excel to edit something and saving it, then opening with another text editor then you have:
Line 1_1; Line 1_2;;;
;;;;
Line 3_1; Line 3_2; Line 3_3; Line 3_4;
Line 4_1; Line 4_2; Line 4_3; Line 4_4;
Line x_1; Line x_2; Line x_3; Line x_4; Note the additional ";" in lines 1 and 2
And yes... I know, but that's the csv I get from customers... First line is variable and can be less or more than the data part (at least data is a "rectangle")
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Nelek wrote: but that's the csv I get from customers
Glad I'm not the only one! I have one customer's csv import that looks like this:
"1201,05-41-2100-AP,12033.32,07-01-2020,07-31-2020"
Yes, each line is encapsulated in double quotes not to mention the blank lines and subotals/totals spread throughout. This is what they give me, and if I can possibly make things work, I handle it...in this case checking each line for a 34 at the beginning and ending, except where matching pairs occur without a comma, etc. 
After 20 years of dealing with imports, nothing surprises me anymore! It has resulted in some highly customizable options bloat.
One gripe I have about working with .csv files is the fact that Excel will automatically strip leading 0s simply by opening the file, even without saving. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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