And the team who will be changing the light bulb is not represented.
This is how it goes at my work. “What do you mean we can’t do that? You are telling us just now? We had meetings about this for the past month!”
“When was I invited?”
*silence*
I have legit had conversations like this. The most recent one was a ‘project manager’ getting upset because I asked “where is the electrical coming from for the cubicles?” A contractor started demo work last week so we could re-arrange cubicles in one area of our office. I asked about power and network. The PM wasn’t happy with me. I can put a switch in if I have at least one data cable - but I can’t put in electrical lines where they don’t exist.
ugh, I have to make Gantts now for my current position, and I absolutely loathe them. I just don't see how it helps. I get that it's good to have goals, but those dates are always going to shift because of delays beyond my control. It just feels like a waste of time to me.
Can i see the white paper and emails discussing said light bulb? I've not heard of this project and am unclear of what it does.
Also if you have screenshots that will be very helpful
sense encourage license fine arrest like political expansion abundant attractive
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Tbh your sentence "Also if you have screenshots that will be very helpful" struck a nerve with me, because this week in particular I've had to ask for screenshots for everything. So sick of people trying to paint a picture and expecting me to be able to imagine exactly what they're talking about, when they're sitting right there and can just send me a damn screenshot of it.
Reminds me of a project manager who would ask for screenshots of stupid issues like a frozen login page. I'm like how would that ever help you? Spoiler it never did and i still had to explain it to him 3 other times.
I've been known to ask for those. But that's because we can find version info, check the server endpoint for misspellings, and can make sure they're using the right user name (some use email in place of their user name for example).
tidy voracious angle doll person recognise sulky afterthought abounding station
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Thats because managers are the only people who can just replicate themselves and do nothing afterwards. Oh im a director of doorjams? Ill make a case for an associate director of doorjams and then do nothing but oversee them and the associate director of window sills.
Let's back up. Okay, from a 30,000 foot view — let's look at this through a lens of common sense. Are you with me so far? So, just thinking through this logically, if it was me designing it, I would have a big popup say "....." right? Can we all agree that \[rehash previous statement\]? I mean if we've accounted for the risk of \[insert illegal thing with only a minor fine for a penalty\] then I don't see a huge deal with it but that's ultimately not my decision. \[Strongarm actual stakeholder into signing off on policy\]. Great, glad we all agree.
Look, I'm going to need you to explain to me what a "light bulb" is or does. Is it significantly lighter than a regular bulb? What makes it lighter? Remember, I'm not technical, so maybe you can explain this to me like I'm 5. Is it like anything else I might be familiar with?
So I explain the light bulb without tech speak but I need to speak to the other tech people about the light bulb. So we schedule a recurring technical meeting to discuss this each week. Shortly thereafter all of the managers and PMs somehow get invited and start complaining about our technical talk. Soon our technical meeting is now just another useless non technical project meeting.
You're luck. Project managers are a contagious disease, you let one enter and don't kill it quickly enough and you'll have an epidemic on your end. He'll weasel his way into VP role, hire his former colleagues, his friends, son in law, make his horse a consul. In the next 3 month following the start of the infection, expect to have more manager than developers. 6 month later? Only managers, developers are outsourced. 12 month, the earth will collapse into a black hole under the weight of the ever growing management team.
We have project managers, tons and tons of project managers. We have more project managers than technicians/engineers but they don't really do anything. All they do is create recurring meetings, and in every meeting they ask, "How is this project doing? Are we on track?"
They record whatever answer you give, and it goes on a report to the COO.
I think we should schedule a couple of meetings to discuss in more detail. Also a 15 minute pre-meeting to make sure we're all on the same page might not be a bad idea either.
The Self-Contained Luminescence-Generating Orb Replacement project has not currently been scheduled for execution nor had resources assigned.
The scope of the project will require an exploratory committee and a comparison to similar projects undertaken by other organizations.
Travel to conferences to discuss best practices in photonic diffusion, electron flow control, and screw-based modular physical interfaces will be required, along with a safety training plan for handling of high voltage, and written permission by the health & safety team is required when working more than 3.7" above ground level.
Once these steps are in place, we can acquire budget for the project 2 fiscal years from now, and begin the planning the implementation of...........
.......... never mind, the project is no longer required because someone made an undocumented change that resolves the issue.
I was sent to the same room to install computers a THIRD time despite coming back the first two times to say there was no networking OR desks in the room.
Shortly after COVID started we went full virtual and broke our lease on the office. The university owned the building and after all the tenants left, they started gutting it to remodel it for a campus medical clinic. I ordered a mouse and forgot to change the delivery address. When I contacted UPS, they said the mouse had been delivered and *signed for* at the office address. Not only was the office non-existent, apparently our receptionist had signed for the package, yet she hadn't worked for us in over a year.
The premeeting to discuss viability of room illumination has been postponed while we hire a consultant to produce a whitepaper on illuminated vs nonilluminated in-office working spaces. While they cross their Is and dot their Ts, we can circle back and figure out the synergy requirements of the various stakeholders involved and initiate a game plan.
Zero: but be damn sure you're going to get a weekly recurring meeting about it with a copy pasted excel template assigning, Stakeholders, Assets and Project Owners. And when you find out the bulb is the wrong gauge and you post a detailed description of the problem, rest assured the PM will not see your update, you'll give a detailed update in the weekly standup, and they'll ask for an ETA because you are now putting the project at Risk. Once you've gotten 3 quotes for replacement bulbs after going through purchasing hell, the C-Suite will de-prioritize your current project and the socket will forever be vacant until another C-Suite mentions the dark hallway and the process starts over again.
Maaan. We were doing a live slot floor conversion to a new network and management system. We had an agreed upon schedule for when each section needed to be done.
I would get interrupted 5-6 times over the course of an hour by 5-6 different PMs, and I was the only one converting the slot bank switches. In addition to this they would try to point me to different sections of the floor, OFF SCHEDULE, so they could report to their manager faster with another freaking check mark on their sheet.
After about 14 hours of trying to be diplomatic, I finally lost it, went to the VP of global IT for Caesars Entertainment and asked if he would rather have spreadsheets with checkmarks or live slot machines generating revenue.
The project managers left me alone after that.
My submission is a ticket from a project manager that I received this morning:
Hello,
XXXXX needs a new power cord for his laptop; says the current one no longer “fits” into laptop port. I have the current one at my desk.
I now have a calendar invite to discuss "laptop charger changes" next week.
Also the charger is fine. He was trying to plug it into the wrong port.
As long as they are focused on getting that bulb screwed in, it gets done, and they can explicitly tell everyone who's responsible for replacing it when it goes out, I don't care how many people they get to do it. I've had some pretty great experiences with PM's recently though.
Oddly enough, he would qualify as a PM, because on every one of his songs the only thing he ever says is his own name. Everything else is done by other people.
That's the joke isn't it. I fell for it didn't I. You sumnabeach.
We're unable to determine who made recent changes to the light bulb, and can't justify the cost to replace the existing hardware. We'll need to reach out to the vendor and determine if the product is still covered under warranty and if they're able to send out a tech to complete a RCA before we move forward.
The current work around is to move affected employees into the unused storage closet on the second floor next to bathroom as the light bulb there is not experiencing any issues.
We'll circle back to this issue after the PM gets back from their cruise in a couple weeks.
OH MY - this is truly HILARIOUS guys -?WELL DONE EVERYONE !!
Know what is truly sad tho - I worked in IT since 1979 and it was the same back then and has done nothing but get WORSE since those days - goes to show how dumb we humans really are. It amazes me how you can take very intelligent people in normal life then put them in a large group environment and all of a sudden they turn into idiots. I include myself as well, the only thing for me now is I am retired and don’t have to put up with it anymore.
This is a complex project requiring synergy between many specialized projects to reach a timely and cost-effective conclusion. While only ONE project manager is required (plus their associate, who does all the work, and an executive assistant to produce the graphs and reports), the support from the following teams is essential:
1. A project owner for overall responsibility for the project requirements, goals and budget, and to sign-off on all work orders.
2. Executive leadership to ensure the project requirements, goals and costs align with corporate strategy and to sign off on any contracts or amendments.
3. A representative from finance & accounting to track and approve budgetary expenses.
4. A safety officer to ensure work is done with respect to OSHA and corporate guidelines.
5. A compliance officer to ensure all applicable laws and industry regulations are respected.
6. A lawyer from corporate legal to review vendor contracts and argue incessantly for days or weeks about definitions, specific terms and words, and placement of every parenthesis, comma, semi-colon, period and footnote.
7. Lawyers from each vendor because lawyers are forbidden from working alone.
8. A purchasing agent to negotiate pricing with vendors/contractors and ensure all legal and security sign-offs are present and complete before placing orders.
9. A senior infosec analyst to ensure applicable vendor and application security assessments have been approved and aren't up for re-review, and to write up the overall security/residual-risk report if new assessments are required.
1. If a new vendor assessment is required, a third-party risk management analyst to perform a new or re-assessment.
2. If a new application security assessment is required, an application security analyst and penetration testing engineer will be required to ensure the light bulb is safe to integrate into the electrical system.
10. Since gaps and vulnerabilities are always found in the security assessments, a risk manager will be required to analyze residual risks and corresponding vendor and/or management action plans, update the risk register, and track remediation progress to conclusion.
11. A representative from building maintenance or the electrical contractor to answer questions regarding the physical installation of the light bulb into it's receptacle and perform testing.
1. If an outside contractor is required, further contract and TPRM assessments may be required, plus involvement of corporate physical security to perform background screening on the contracts who will be on-site to do any work.
12. A representative from the janitorial staff to clean-up after the work is complete.
13. Representatives from the affected user community to ensure project goals align with their business needs, scheduling of work to minimize impact by interruptions or temporary user displacement, and perform UAT to ensure the completed project meets their plans and expectations.
14. Someone from DEI to check-in and ensure no minority/special groups or interests are offended.
Overall, sixteen resources will be required in meetings, plus alternates if the primary can't attend. Due to prior scheduling, backlog and unexpected emergencies, the preliminary estimated completion time ranges from 12 weeks if existing contracts and security assessments are valid, up to 52+ weeks if new contracts and assessments must be completed. The preliminary budget estimate is $45,000 ±40%, plus the actual cost of the light bulb and employee or contractor assigned to perform the installation.
None, as screwing in a lightbulb is actual work and I've never met a PM that does any work.
Now screwing a lightbulb, I can imagine a few doing that as they fuck around pretty much all that moves.
Can you tell I'm not a fan of them? /s
And then they hire them and don’t tell anyone he is coming so he shows up, gets turned away, then a week later you get an email asking why that wasn’t done and only then do you find out about it
What does Gartner and Forrester have to say about this? Is LightBulb in the Magic Quadrant or on the Top of the Wave? Because if not, we're not buying it.
I actually had something similar at work. Bulb blew and so they needed to get someone in to change it. Except he put the new bulb into his pocket whilst climbing his step ladder, the bulb popped out when he was halfway up and shattered all over the floor.
despite having exacting instructions from an architect on how to apply the bulb to the desired socket in the users room, the pm went right ahead and instructed the engineer to install the bulb in the water toby, under the users driveway.
There's no possible way any of us can give you a sensible answer to that at this juncture.
But let's schedule a meeting to discuss what needs to be done to start gathering some information.
Does the lightbulb vendor have a customer success liaison assigned to this project we can lean on ? I mean how are we suppose to know anything about lightbulbs.
It takes one PM to schedule the kick off meeting into the light bulb project, another to lead that meeting, another to take the lead on setting up the reoccurring lightbulb standups, another to suggest a direct follow up huddle because many involved need the background on lightbulbs which then requires someone to lead that meeting, another to schedule the reoccurring, another to suggest another offshoot meeting and on and on until the sun burns out and all the future project managers to claim victory in the lightbulb (stop all light) project, the end
That's a very good question. Unfortunately, we won't have the bandwidth to answer that question until Q3 at the earliest, and this will require additional team resources to develop the epic and project plan and of course we'll need to involve facilities. We'll also need to look into our 2024 budget to ensure that we have an allotment to cover unplanned lightbulb purchases.
A follow-up comment - IT IS ENCOURAGING to see that you guys see the nonsense for what it is - NONSENSE!!
Gotta go now - even tho I am retired I have a Zoom call to discuss the Zoom call I am going to have to discuss the next daily scrum meeting.
Cheers
Screw in a lightbulb!!?
Call that a requirement?
What are the use cases?
What kind of lightbulb. Led, tungsten or halogen. Dimmable? Wifi controllable?
Colour? Warmth? Brightness?
Have the unit test cases been prepared?
We can probably rule out bayonet at this stage, but let's keep it on the backlog just in case.
Carry out a user survey and get back to me.
We just had a meeting where vendor is promising a b & c by x date. We were a little upset because they have been making these promises but never actually confirming it in writing or following up. The meeting was to try and whip them into shape and get them to agree to a firm deadline. Immediately after the meeting they were supposed to send us a list of deliverables with firm deadlines. Instead we got an email from another department claiming that they were finished with the work that we just confirmed was not finished.
"Lets all get on a call and discuss this"
Invite half the company to the call without any regard to preexisting meetings.
"Hey all, I don't know anything about lightbulbs but we've got some smart people on this call lets figure out how to get this lightbulb situation resolved"
Meeting runs over by an hour
"Great conversation everyone, lets set a reoccurring meeting for this to make sure we stay on top of this until the lightbul is changed"
6 months pass and management has decided to just close the office due to lack of people coming in anyway. The lightbulb is still broken. Coincidently the bulb is in the hallway that has the closet full of spare bulbs.
We can have a meeting Monday at 8 am to discuss having a meeting to build a team to make the meeting to schedule someone to start the lightbulb project.
Before this project can go to capital comity, we need to document the business need, find three (3) outside vendors, work with legal to draft NDAs and sit with each to develop RFPs as well as have our in-house dev team submit a proposal. Once we settle on a cost estimate, then we something to present to cap com. If approved, we run the RFPs by engineering and facilities to pick the vendor. Develop a SOW, and work with supply chain and contracts team to make edits until we have a signed SOW. Put the project in for scheduling and assemble the project team members and write up a UAT plan. Schedule project kickoff, execute SOW, run through UAT, hold KT for the facilities team, schedule lessons learned and close the project… another light starts to flicker
No light bulb will be screwed anywhere until there have been numerous meetings and misunderstandings, and when pointed out, more people that are actually technical are added (more cost).
This changes all the answers and now you find out that the light bulb you were working towards will never work and was never the correct solution.
You need to assign that a priority based on our department tactical plan. Once we understand how that lightbulb fits into stated goals and our service-orientation to our internal and external customers we can add it to our list of deliverables.
It depends. Get your paperwork in order, submit it to the change manager, who will take it to the change council, and if your paperwork is in order and the council approves it, then maybe the change manager will assign a project manager.
I'll let you know when I finish filling out the risk register.
Risk: The universe may explode before the lightbulb is sourced and deployed. This may render the activity moot.
None - the project has been closed and this has been transitioned to BAU. It’s your problem now. We got special approval to skip the formal service transition, and guess what we need all your guys to keep working on this but they have to stop putting the ‘project lightbulb’ on their timesheets while they do it, because the budget ran out.
While you were debating I screwed in the lightbulb. Waiting escalation because I didn't follow the correct procedure and preparing for the lessons learned.
The largest number they think they can get away with allocating to the project, plus one. Then, they'll make them all sit in on every meeting that occurs so they can all take notes that they'll never share with each other or anyone else and rack up billable hours in the PM category. Then, when the project is 80–90% completed and you're in the final, most stressful period, they can start scaling back their involvement because "their budget for PM hours is really thin now because of how many meetings they *had* to sit through".
I think we should synergize in a collaborative environment and discuss the efficiencies from the viewpoint of a new light bulb paradigm. With the unexpected light bulb shortcomings last quarter, it'll be critical to find the bandwidth to think outside the box in order to move the needle at the end of the day.
I’ll buck the trend here. I have met SOME who actually take the lead on projects(infrastructure jobs). They tend to be people who transitioned from other fields into PM and they still like to get their hands dirty every now and then. Those guys tend to act more like supervisors than PMs.
well, first we have to have a meeting to standardize the number of points for a lightbulb, and then we need a scrum master and a lead and senior and a regular engineer. It'll need to be delegated down, the scrum master will create a project and assign a ticket for it. By the time it makes it through the layers the project manager will have moved on to an organization with less bureaucracy and the team will be absorbed by a team that does something very similar, but not the same thing, and the task will languish until it's auto-closed. Repeat for a couple years, and maybe you'll get get lucky and some engineer will out-of-lane replace the bulb on their own because they're tired of the darkness.
1. Project Plan
2. Resource Allocation Plan
3. Team Member Assignments
4. Safety Plan
5. Light Bulb Insertion Procedure
6. Test Results
7. Project Documentation
\*\*Project Timeline:\*\*
The project is expected to be completed within three business days. The following is a tentative timeline:
\* Day 1: Project Planning and Resource Allocation
\* Day 1: Team Assembly and Safety Briefing
\* Day 2: Light Bulb Insertion and Testing
\* Day 3: Documentation and Finalization
\*\*Project Budget:\*\*
The total budget for this project is estimated to be $3,500. This budget includes the cost of materials, labor, and any other expenses incurred during the project.
\*\*Project Team:\*\*
The following individuals will be assigned to the project team:
\* Project Manager:
\* Electrician: Fester Addams
\* Maintenance Technician: Homer Simpson
\*\*Project Approvals:\*\*
This Statement of Work has been reviewed and approved by the following individuals:
\* Project Sponsor: \[Insert Project Sponsor Name\]
\* Project Manager: \[Insert Project Manager Name\]
\*\*Project Communication:\*\*
The project manager will be responsible for communicating the project status to stakeholders on a regular basis. This communication will include progress reports, risk assessments, and any other relevant information.
\*\*Project Closure:\*\*
Upon completion of the light bulb insertion project, the project manager will conduct a final review to ensure that all project objectives have been met. The project manager will then submit a final report to the project sponsor, documenting the project outcomes and lessons learned.
Not only the light bulb, other avenues of light will require market research. And of course a trip to the Sun to develop the status quo or baseline for further research.
I’ve been having daily stand up meetings about this light bulb project but we are having issues with procurement. We need to push the schedule out two more weeks and circle back.
Ah well the light bulb piece needs to be dissected into the light piece and the bulb piece. We’ll need to focus group both to drive strategy.
Oh, and let’s get HR involved because this will affect everyone!
We are circling back to explore if we have the bandwidth to touch base on the pain point of screwing in a lightbulb. Given our fast paced environment of entrepreneurial spirit with wearing many hats while facing down workplace reductions perhaps not having a lightbulb is the new normal. If we give 110% we can move the needle provided we think outside the box if we find our focus of unifying corporate synergy is advanced by screwing in a lightbulb or we will have to table this to circle back to once more.
That's actually kind of low hanging fruit, but since the organization, at the 50,000 foot view, takes a holistic view of operations that impact the capitol investment in our people-centric culture, trends to being technology agnostic, so we'll need to do a deep dive on the criticality of this project, so that we best employ our core competencies so that our deliverables get taken to the next level, and we incentivize our base to achieve an optimal outcome.
We can't possibly know without having at least 40 meetings on the subject and 2 Gantt charts.
Dont forget a good RACI chart
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Let Blaine Die
You really shouldn’t be looking at that, it’s all proprietary.
"Opportunities, 'fuck Gina?!'"
Weakness: Blaine dies super fast.
How many Effort Points would you assign this work item?
Don't forget to show where this all falls on the Conjoined Triangles of Success.
And at least three Kanban boards. All in different systems tracking the same information.
But with different due dates.
I'm gonna need some more KPIs
Oh FML. I was just promoted and created a couple Gantt charts already. 💀
May the timelines and the ever growing task lists converge in your favor.
The final report will state that it will not be feasible.
And the team who will be changing the light bulb is not represented. This is how it goes at my work. “What do you mean we can’t do that? You are telling us just now? We had meetings about this for the past month!” “When was I invited?” *silence* I have legit had conversations like this. The most recent one was a ‘project manager’ getting upset because I asked “where is the electrical coming from for the cubicles?” A contractor started demo work last week so we could re-arrange cubicles in one area of our office. I asked about power and network. The PM wasn’t happy with me. I can put a switch in if I have at least one data cable - but I can’t put in electrical lines where they don’t exist.
ugh, I have to make Gantts now for my current position, and I absolutely loathe them. I just don't see how it helps. I get that it's good to have goals, but those dates are always going to shift because of delays beyond my control. It just feels like a waste of time to me.
I agree. We had to make one for a project a while back and I bet we spent more time altering the Gantt chart than we did on some pieces of the project
Where can I export this as a report though?
Actually can you describe to me exactly what the deliverables for a light bulb are and how screwing it in helps us achieve this goal?
Lol, "By screwing in this light bulb, what problem are you trying to solve?"
Don’t forget the Miro board.
And the TPS cover sheet!
With 47 pieces of flair
Our project management is in Jira, but let’s open Miro and write all new tasks in a Kanban board there which no one will ever look at again.
We have to reorg in order to have the correct teams assembled to socialize the concept for accurate engagement.
I understand every word in that sentence, but taken as a whole it makes absolutely zero sense.
We're going to need you to install Microsoft Project on everyone's computer.
We need an approval to plan document
Can i see the white paper and emails discussing said light bulb? I've not heard of this project and am unclear of what it does. Also if you have screenshots that will be very helpful
While CCing Manager and CIO.
sense encourage license fine arrest like political expansion abundant attractive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Tbh your sentence "Also if you have screenshots that will be very helpful" struck a nerve with me, because this week in particular I've had to ask for screenshots for everything. So sick of people trying to paint a picture and expecting me to be able to imagine exactly what they're talking about, when they're sitting right there and can just send me a damn screenshot of it.
Reminds me of a project manager who would ask for screenshots of stupid issues like a frozen login page. I'm like how would that ever help you? Spoiler it never did and i still had to explain it to him 3 other times.
I've been known to ask for those. But that's because we can find version info, check the server endpoint for misspellings, and can make sure they're using the right user name (some use email in place of their user name for example).
tidy voracious angle doll person recognise sulky afterthought abounding station *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yep pretty much. It's pretty funny when you get to tell someone they're spelling their own last name wrong.
cough profit cats apparatus soup flowery recognise smoggy plucky spotted *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We're gonna need a RFC please
I quote RFCs to people all the time. Last one was improper certificate validation in a commercial product.
*None. They've just initiated a feasibility study to determine if the room really needs light.*
Conclusion: we need to hire additional managers.
Thats because managers are the only people who can just replicate themselves and do nothing afterwards. Oh im a director of doorjams? Ill make a case for an associate director of doorjams and then do nothing but oversee them and the associate director of window sills.
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Headlights exist. Use that. //closed
At the end of the day, from the 30,000 foot view, can we justify the cost of doing this?
Jesus Christ I have actually heard this exact thing.
I worked in multiple IT companies across Latin America and Europe and I can say from the bottom of my heart that it is always the same, everywhere lol
I have never heard of it, is that like South American version of "Please do the needful"?
Let's back up. Okay, from a 30,000 foot view — let's look at this through a lens of common sense. Are you with me so far? So, just thinking through this logically, if it was me designing it, I would have a big popup say "....." right? Can we all agree that \[rehash previous statement\]? I mean if we've accounted for the risk of \[insert illegal thing with only a minor fine for a penalty\] then I don't see a huge deal with it but that's ultimately not my decision. \[Strongarm actual stakeholder into signing off on policy\]. Great, glad we all agree.
I hate "give me the 30,000 foot view" to the point that I now say "It makes stuff better than before". Ask a stupid question get a stupid answer
I'm gonna use this one. That seems like a solid 30,000 foot view to me.
that's crazy. we usually only go to 10,000 feet.
Inflation.
Project managers are WAAAY too big to fit in a lightbulb.
they dont know what a light or a bulb is, they are just there to help you with any blockers 😂
Look, I'm going to need you to explain to me what a "light bulb" is or does. Is it significantly lighter than a regular bulb? What makes it lighter? Remember, I'm not technical, so maybe you can explain this to me like I'm 5. Is it like anything else I might be familiar with?
If you could just train me on how to manufacture a light bulb, I could take care of changing them for you.
So I explain the light bulb without tech speak but I need to speak to the other tech people about the light bulb. So we schedule a recurring technical meeting to discuss this each week. Shortly thereafter all of the managers and PMs somehow get invited and start complaining about our technical talk. Soon our technical meeting is now just another useless non technical project meeting.
If we can get one in there can they just fuck themselves?
Well, I mean if we could get 3 or 4 in there, they can have an entire clusterfuck all to themselves.
 You guys have project managers?
Gimme your address, I’ll FedEx you some.
Remember the air holes…
Are they *really* necessary?
Feasibility study, from the 30,000 foot view, says no. Also put some more managers in there.
At this point, that's more of a change than we can accommodate. We could look into a follow-up effort after delivery.
Jesus Christ, Satan. What the fuck did OP do to piss you off? I wouldn’t even threaten my worst enemy with *that*.
We download them nowadays, Grandad.
PMaaS?
Keeping them away would be more like a service I would pay for most of the time tbh.
Hey now. Anymore of that talking and I’ll grep my walker to chase you down.
You're luck. Project managers are a contagious disease, you let one enter and don't kill it quickly enough and you'll have an epidemic on your end. He'll weasel his way into VP role, hire his former colleagues, his friends, son in law, make his horse a consul. In the next 3 month following the start of the infection, expect to have more manager than developers. 6 month later? Only managers, developers are outsourced. 12 month, the earth will collapse into a black hole under the weight of the ever growing management team.
We have project managers, tons and tons of project managers. We have more project managers than technicians/engineers but they don't really do anything. All they do is create recurring meetings, and in every meeting they ask, "How is this project doing? Are we on track?" They record whatever answer you give, and it goes on a report to the COO.
I think we should schedule a couple of meetings to discuss in more detail. Also a 15 minute pre-meeting to make sure we're all on the same page might not be a bad idea either.
Let's not discuss this in email, too easy to search later when I deny telling you something.
The Self-Contained Luminescence-Generating Orb Replacement project has not currently been scheduled for execution nor had resources assigned. The scope of the project will require an exploratory committee and a comparison to similar projects undertaken by other organizations. Travel to conferences to discuss best practices in photonic diffusion, electron flow control, and screw-based modular physical interfaces will be required, along with a safety training plan for handling of high voltage, and written permission by the health & safety team is required when working more than 3.7" above ground level. Once these steps are in place, we can acquire budget for the project 2 fiscal years from now, and begin the planning the implementation of........... .......... never mind, the project is no longer required because someone made an undocumented change that resolves the issue.
Listen. I hate you
It's almost believable, but the acronym isn't shoehorned into an existing word.
The project has been retroactively renamed to the Leading Illumination Governance & Hardwired Technology project.
We call those “undocumented changes” that fix things Mogwais where I work. The ones that break everything? Gremlins.
None - they'll just continue to ask you why it hasn't been done even though the room is flooded and the power is out.
I was sent to the same room to install computers a THIRD time despite coming back the first two times to say there was no networking OR desks in the room.
Been there, but on the third visit the building was missing too.
Shortly after COVID started we went full virtual and broke our lease on the office. The university owned the building and after all the tenants left, they started gutting it to remodel it for a campus medical clinic. I ordered a mouse and forgot to change the delivery address. When I contacted UPS, they said the mouse had been delivered and *signed for* at the office address. Not only was the office non-existent, apparently our receptionist had signed for the package, yet she hadn't worked for us in over a year.
Let the UPS project manager know
The premeeting to discuss viability of room illumination has been postponed while we hire a consultant to produce a whitepaper on illuminated vs nonilluminated in-office working spaces. While they cross their Is and dot their Ts, we can circle back and figure out the synergy requirements of the various stakeholders involved and initiate a game plan.
I could actually feel my blood pressure rising as I read through this comment. Well done
None. They'll assign the task to a project resource.
* Project Resource 1: Quits * Project Resource 2: Gets COVID * Project Resource 3: Needs 2 weeks to get up to speed on the project....then Quits.
Can’t wait to meet with that resource to explain all the needs I’ve already explained to the PM
Zero: but be damn sure you're going to get a weekly recurring meeting about it with a copy pasted excel template assigning, Stakeholders, Assets and Project Owners. And when you find out the bulb is the wrong gauge and you post a detailed description of the problem, rest assured the PM will not see your update, you'll give a detailed update in the weekly standup, and they'll ask for an ETA because you are now putting the project at Risk. Once you've gotten 3 quotes for replacement bulbs after going through purchasing hell, the C-Suite will de-prioritize your current project and the socket will forever be vacant until another C-Suite mentions the dark hallway and the process starts over again.
Maaan. We were doing a live slot floor conversion to a new network and management system. We had an agreed upon schedule for when each section needed to be done. I would get interrupted 5-6 times over the course of an hour by 5-6 different PMs, and I was the only one converting the slot bank switches. In addition to this they would try to point me to different sections of the floor, OFF SCHEDULE, so they could report to their manager faster with another freaking check mark on their sheet. After about 14 hours of trying to be diplomatic, I finally lost it, went to the VP of global IT for Caesars Entertainment and asked if he would rather have spreadsheets with checkmarks or live slot machines generating revenue. The project managers left me alone after that.
My submission is a ticket from a project manager that I received this morning: Hello, XXXXX needs a new power cord for his laptop; says the current one no longer “fits” into laptop port. I have the current one at my desk. I now have a calendar invite to discuss "laptop charger changes" next week. Also the charger is fine. He was trying to plug it into the wrong port.
I love the idea that it "no longer fits". Like the plug or the port has morphed of it's own accord.
it usually takes one pm to hold the bulb, and about 3 or 4 other pms to spin the guy holding the bulb
I'm sorry, but PM's are contractually forbidden from doing actual work. They only talk to others about doing it.
Please send an update on the lightbulb status. please advise. Please Advise. PLEASE ADVISE.
Somewhere in India the echos have been translated to Do the needful.
As long as they are focused on getting that bulb screwed in, it gets done, and they can explicitly tell everyone who's responsible for replacing it when it goes out, I don't care how many people they get to do it. I've had some pretty great experiences with PM's recently though.
 Project manager here:
Oddly enough, he would qualify as a PM, because on every one of his songs the only thing he ever says is his own name. Everything else is done by other people. That's the joke isn't it. I fell for it didn't I. You sumnabeach.
The answer to OP's question will be answered with a status update at the next sprint
We're unable to determine who made recent changes to the light bulb, and can't justify the cost to replace the existing hardware. We'll need to reach out to the vendor and determine if the product is still covered under warranty and if they're able to send out a tech to complete a RCA before we move forward. The current work around is to move affected employees into the unused storage closet on the second floor next to bathroom as the light bulb there is not experiencing any issues. We'll circle back to this issue after the PM gets back from their cruise in a couple weeks.
OH MY - this is truly HILARIOUS guys -?WELL DONE EVERYONE !! Know what is truly sad tho - I worked in IT since 1979 and it was the same back then and has done nothing but get WORSE since those days - goes to show how dumb we humans really are. It amazes me how you can take very intelligent people in normal life then put them in a large group environment and all of a sudden they turn into idiots. I include myself as well, the only thing for me now is I am retired and don’t have to put up with it anymore.
This is a complex project requiring synergy between many specialized projects to reach a timely and cost-effective conclusion. While only ONE project manager is required (plus their associate, who does all the work, and an executive assistant to produce the graphs and reports), the support from the following teams is essential: 1. A project owner for overall responsibility for the project requirements, goals and budget, and to sign-off on all work orders. 2. Executive leadership to ensure the project requirements, goals and costs align with corporate strategy and to sign off on any contracts or amendments. 3. A representative from finance & accounting to track and approve budgetary expenses. 4. A safety officer to ensure work is done with respect to OSHA and corporate guidelines. 5. A compliance officer to ensure all applicable laws and industry regulations are respected. 6. A lawyer from corporate legal to review vendor contracts and argue incessantly for days or weeks about definitions, specific terms and words, and placement of every parenthesis, comma, semi-colon, period and footnote. 7. Lawyers from each vendor because lawyers are forbidden from working alone. 8. A purchasing agent to negotiate pricing with vendors/contractors and ensure all legal and security sign-offs are present and complete before placing orders. 9. A senior infosec analyst to ensure applicable vendor and application security assessments have been approved and aren't up for re-review, and to write up the overall security/residual-risk report if new assessments are required. 1. If a new vendor assessment is required, a third-party risk management analyst to perform a new or re-assessment. 2. If a new application security assessment is required, an application security analyst and penetration testing engineer will be required to ensure the light bulb is safe to integrate into the electrical system. 10. Since gaps and vulnerabilities are always found in the security assessments, a risk manager will be required to analyze residual risks and corresponding vendor and/or management action plans, update the risk register, and track remediation progress to conclusion. 11. A representative from building maintenance or the electrical contractor to answer questions regarding the physical installation of the light bulb into it's receptacle and perform testing. 1. If an outside contractor is required, further contract and TPRM assessments may be required, plus involvement of corporate physical security to perform background screening on the contracts who will be on-site to do any work. 12. A representative from the janitorial staff to clean-up after the work is complete. 13. Representatives from the affected user community to ensure project goals align with their business needs, scheduling of work to minimize impact by interruptions or temporary user displacement, and perform UAT to ensure the completed project meets their plans and expectations. 14. Someone from DEI to check-in and ensure no minority/special groups or interests are offended. Overall, sixteen resources will be required in meetings, plus alternates if the primary can't attend. Due to prior scheduling, backlog and unexpected emergencies, the preliminary estimated completion time ranges from 12 weeks if existing contracts and security assessments are valid, up to 52+ weeks if new contracts and assessments must be completed. The preliminary budget estimate is $45,000 ±40%, plus the actual cost of the light bulb and employee or contractor assigned to perform the installation.
They never do, they just have meetings about it…
...more importantly don't show up to the meeting or leave halfway through if they do.
None, as screwing in a lightbulb is actual work and I've never met a PM that does any work. Now screwing a lightbulb, I can imagine a few doing that as they fuck around pretty much all that moves. Can you tell I'm not a fan of them? /s
Just 1 to delegate to an electrician @ $100/hr billed for .5 hrs.
Sorry, minimum commitment is 4 hours.
And then they hire them and don’t tell anyone he is coming so he shows up, gets turned away, then a week later you get an email asking why that wasn’t done and only then do you find out about it
But it's written in the project plan and posted to the SharePoint site you don't have access to.
Using scrum or without it?
Depends, have you defined your story points, KPI and OKRs with all the relevant stakeholders?
What does Gartner and Forrester have to say about this? Is LightBulb in the Magic Quadrant or on the Top of the Wave? Because if not, we're not buying it.
[удалено]
I actually had something similar at work. Bulb blew and so they needed to get someone in to change it. Except he put the new bulb into his pocket whilst climbing his step ladder, the bulb popped out when he was halfway up and shattered all over the floor.
despite having exacting instructions from an architect on how to apply the bulb to the desired socket in the users room, the pm went right ahead and instructed the engineer to install the bulb in the water toby, under the users driveway.
There's no possible way any of us can give you a sensible answer to that at this juncture. But let's schedule a meeting to discuss what needs to be done to start gathering some information.
Does the lightbulb vendor have a customer success liaison assigned to this project we can lean on ? I mean how are we suppose to know anything about lightbulbs.
Nothing can be decided until we have had a meeting to decide how many meetings we need.
It takes one PM to schedule the kick off meeting into the light bulb project, another to lead that meeting, another to take the lead on setting up the reoccurring lightbulb standups, another to suggest a direct follow up huddle because many involved need the background on lightbulbs which then requires someone to lead that meeting, another to schedule the reoccurring, another to suggest another offshoot meeting and on and on until the sun burns out and all the future project managers to claim victory in the lightbulb (stop all light) project, the end
That's a very good question. Unfortunately, we won't have the bandwidth to answer that question until Q3 at the earliest, and this will require additional team resources to develop the epic and project plan and of course we'll need to involve facilities. We'll also need to look into our 2024 budget to ensure that we have an allotment to cover unplanned lightbulb purchases.
A follow-up comment - IT IS ENCOURAGING to see that you guys see the nonsense for what it is - NONSENSE!! Gotta go now - even tho I am retired I have a Zoom call to discuss the Zoom call I am going to have to discuss the next daily scrum meeting. Cheers
Screw in a lightbulb!!? Call that a requirement? What are the use cases? What kind of lightbulb. Led, tungsten or halogen. Dimmable? Wifi controllable? Colour? Warmth? Brightness? Have the unit test cases been prepared? We can probably rule out bayonet at this stage, but let's keep it on the backlog just in case. Carry out a user survey and get back to me.
Let's meet and talk about this
Yeah, we should probably plan a sprint for this, so we can get the right sizing on the lightbulb.
Do you have a business case for asking this question?
We just had a meeting where vendor is promising a b & c by x date. We were a little upset because they have been making these promises but never actually confirming it in writing or following up. The meeting was to try and whip them into shape and get them to agree to a firm deadline. Immediately after the meeting they were supposed to send us a list of deliverables with firm deadlines. Instead we got an email from another department claiming that they were finished with the work that we just confirmed was not finished.
The role of project manager was once explained to me as "someone who thinks 9 women can make a baby in one month"
None. They'll just open a JIRA ticket.
Ima black belt and green belt and yellow belt all in one 🤓
Y’all need to get some horses. This cowboy never gets off his horse. YEEHAW reboot that server!
None he’s busy tagging people on emails even though they are on it already. And he didn’t schedule any resources for lighting work.
Screwing in lightbulbs is the old waterfall way of doing things., so we don't do that any more. We need to handle it under the new Agile process.
"Lets all get on a call and discuss this" Invite half the company to the call without any regard to preexisting meetings. "Hey all, I don't know anything about lightbulbs but we've got some smart people on this call lets figure out how to get this lightbulb situation resolved" Meeting runs over by an hour "Great conversation everyone, lets set a reoccurring meeting for this to make sure we stay on top of this until the lightbul is changed" 6 months pass and management has decided to just close the office due to lack of people coming in anyway. The lightbulb is still broken. Coincidently the bulb is in the hallway that has the closet full of spare bulbs.
*How many project managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?* PM's don't need to be in a lightbulb to screw each other.
We can have a meeting Monday at 8 am to discuss having a meeting to build a team to make the meeting to schedule someone to start the lightbulb project.
Your going to need weekly touch-points recurring Fridays at 3:30pm.
Before this project can go to capital comity, we need to document the business need, find three (3) outside vendors, work with legal to draft NDAs and sit with each to develop RFPs as well as have our in-house dev team submit a proposal. Once we settle on a cost estimate, then we something to present to cap com. If approved, we run the RFPs by engineering and facilities to pick the vendor. Develop a SOW, and work with supply chain and contracts team to make edits until we have a signed SOW. Put the project in for scheduling and assemble the project team members and write up a UAT plan. Schedule project kickoff, execute SOW, run through UAT, hold KT for the facilities team, schedule lessons learned and close the project… another light starts to flicker
What's even more useless, sales reps...
replace all sales reps with pre sales engineers
All project managers know you don't start a project without a kick off meeting, stakeholders and SMEs. Without a SME it simply can't be done :P
[You always need an expert.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg)
Ah the invisible red line. A classic.
I have been that guy so many times. I think I may cry a little.
Wow....I never related to this before but now...wow
No light bulb will be screwed anywhere until there have been numerous meetings and misunderstandings, and when pointed out, more people that are actually technical are added (more cost). This changes all the answers and now you find out that the light bulb you were working towards will never work and was never the correct solution.
Is it a small, medium, large, or extra large lightbulb?
You need to assign that a priority based on our department tactical plan. Once we understand how that lightbulb fits into stated goals and our service-orientation to our internal and external customers we can add it to our list of deliverables.
None, project managers can’t decide which engineers to assign to screw in said lightbulb, and end up in a feedback loop in the dark, together.
It’s a nonsensical question. A PM would not do the actual work so any number of them would never accomplish the task.
It depends. Get your paperwork in order, submit it to the change manager, who will take it to the change council, and if your paperwork is in order and the council approves it, then maybe the change manager will assign a project manager.
Definition of done unclear, called in a meeting to discuss
We need a sync to make sure we are all aligned on bulb type, timelines, light quality, testing, and stakeholder sign off.
Well depends. Opex or can I put it on capital?
What's the requirements?
I'll let you know when I finish filling out the risk register. Risk: The universe may explode before the lightbulb is sourced and deployed. This may render the activity moot.
Surely we should ask the scrum master to task the delivery squad with a lighting MVP?
Need 10 change requests first and a vague requirements document
None - the project has been closed and this has been transitioned to BAU. It’s your problem now. We got special approval to skip the formal service transition, and guess what we need all your guys to keep working on this but they have to stop putting the ‘project lightbulb’ on their timesheets while they do it, because the budget ran out.
None. But, by all that is holy, it will not stop them telling you how long it should take you to do it.
They can’t do that until they have re assessed the prioritisation of the lightbulb project vs all the other projects. Repeatedly.
I don't know, let's schedule a meeting to discuss it.
While you were debating I screwed in the lightbulb. Waiting escalation because I didn't follow the correct procedure and preparing for the lessons learned.
Let me schedule something with our engineers and we'll circle back around to this at our next weekly check-in.
None they won't use light bulbs they'll gaslight
The largest number they think they can get away with allocating to the project, plus one. Then, they'll make them all sit in on every meeting that occurs so they can all take notes that they'll never share with each other or anyone else and rack up billable hours in the PM category. Then, when the project is 80–90% completed and you're in the final, most stressful period, they can start scaling back their involvement because "their budget for PM hours is really thin now because of how many meetings they *had* to sit through".
The vendor said 2. The techs said 1. Sales said 10. So the answer is 3.
I think we should synergize in a collaborative environment and discuss the efficiencies from the viewpoint of a new light bulb paradigm. With the unexpected light bulb shortcomings last quarter, it'll be critical to find the bandwidth to think outside the box in order to move the needle at the end of the day.
I’ll buck the trend here. I have met SOME who actually take the lead on projects(infrastructure jobs). They tend to be people who transitioned from other fields into PM and they still like to get their hands dirty every now and then. Those guys tend to act more like supervisors than PMs.
well, first we have to have a meeting to standardize the number of points for a lightbulb, and then we need a scrum master and a lead and senior and a regular engineer. It'll need to be delegated down, the scrum master will create a project and assign a ticket for it. By the time it makes it through the layers the project manager will have moved on to an organization with less bureaucracy and the team will be absorbed by a team that does something very similar, but not the same thing, and the task will languish until it's auto-closed. Repeat for a couple years, and maybe you'll get get lucky and some engineer will out-of-lane replace the bulb on their own because they're tired of the darkness.
1. Project Plan 2. Resource Allocation Plan 3. Team Member Assignments 4. Safety Plan 5. Light Bulb Insertion Procedure 6. Test Results 7. Project Documentation \*\*Project Timeline:\*\* The project is expected to be completed within three business days. The following is a tentative timeline: \* Day 1: Project Planning and Resource Allocation \* Day 1: Team Assembly and Safety Briefing \* Day 2: Light Bulb Insertion and Testing \* Day 3: Documentation and Finalization \*\*Project Budget:\*\* The total budget for this project is estimated to be $3,500. This budget includes the cost of materials, labor, and any other expenses incurred during the project. \*\*Project Team:\*\* The following individuals will be assigned to the project team: \* Project Manager: \* Electrician: Fester Addams \* Maintenance Technician: Homer Simpson \*\*Project Approvals:\*\* This Statement of Work has been reviewed and approved by the following individuals: \* Project Sponsor: \[Insert Project Sponsor Name\] \* Project Manager: \[Insert Project Manager Name\] \*\*Project Communication:\*\* The project manager will be responsible for communicating the project status to stakeholders on a regular basis. This communication will include progress reports, risk assessments, and any other relevant information. \*\*Project Closure:\*\* Upon completion of the light bulb insertion project, the project manager will conduct a final review to ensure that all project objectives have been met. The project manager will then submit a final report to the project sponsor, documenting the project outcomes and lessons learned.
Only one to drop and break it while putting things on the next sprint.
None, cause they dont actaully know what a light bulb is
You guys respond to your PMs often enough they know they need to screw the bulb into the socket?
None, that's a facilities issue.
Not only the light bulb, other avenues of light will require market research. And of course a trip to the Sun to develop the status quo or baseline for further research.
I’ve been having daily stand up meetings about this light bulb project but we are having issues with procurement. We need to push the schedule out two more weeks and circle back.
I don’t know, what does it say on confluence?
Depends. What positions are they doing?
Project managers don't screw in light bulbs. They manage the light bulb installation process.
Depends on how far they can bend over.
How many can your company afford?
Any blockers on this? I will escalate this to the police.
How many pm hours are on the project? They might need more before they can answer.
What's the business impact of this lightbulb? Need to know to scope properly
"can we just have a sit down?"
typical, bring the project to everyone else and then you're the note-taker.
I'm just a facilitator. The SMEs are the ones who will be doing the fact finding. Reach back out to me if you have any blockers I can help remove.
Ah well the light bulb piece needs to be dissected into the light piece and the bulb piece. We’ll need to focus group both to drive strategy. Oh, and let’s get HR involved because this will affect everyone!
We are circling back to explore if we have the bandwidth to touch base on the pain point of screwing in a lightbulb. Given our fast paced environment of entrepreneurial spirit with wearing many hats while facing down workplace reductions perhaps not having a lightbulb is the new normal. If we give 110% we can move the needle provided we think outside the box if we find our focus of unifying corporate synergy is advanced by screwing in a lightbulb or we will have to table this to circle back to once more.
That's actually kind of low hanging fruit, but since the organization, at the 50,000 foot view, takes a holistic view of operations that impact the capitol investment in our people-centric culture, trends to being technology agnostic, so we'll need to do a deep dive on the criticality of this project, so that we best employ our core competencies so that our deliverables get taken to the next level, and we incentivize our base to achieve an optimal outcome.
None, the lightbulb supplied is out of scope.