Tuesday, April 29, 2008

So What Changed?

At work we are busy getting ready to launch an update to our software so we all have been working extra to work out all the details and to make sure what we deliver is going to meet expectations. This has involved a number 12+hour days due mostly to the fact that our development is partly in Rostov Russia and they are 11 hours ahead of us.

We even had a teleconference meeting this past Saturday because we had to review a list of open issues and determine if they needed to be fixed before we launched it. As a team we all interrupted our day on Saturday and slogged through the list, making a decision on each and every one. We ended up with a list of 20+ items that were labeled MAJOR issues and needed to be fixed before we launched the product.

I come into the office early on Monday morning and find an email from my boss asking if we could just defer all of those issues. SO WHAT CHANGED? I carved out time from my personal life to run through that list that was so critical. I sacrificed a good hour and a half of yard work out in the sunshine to work on the list of issues. SO WHAT CHANGED?

What changed was we heard back from the developers that it would delay the launch for at least a week, probably two. My boss asked me what I thought and here is what I replied to him in an email:

We went through the list and determined that things needed to be fixed, so what changed? I say we slip to the 12th. I feel we have too many issues to force a release on the 5th.

My boss comes into the office and has a conversation with his boss about the release and he tells the President of the company that Karen doesn’t think we should do it. SO WHAT CHANGED? On Saturday it was my boss and one of the other guys that were adamant that we had to fix a few of these issues before we launched. There was no grey area about it, they must be fixed. But now everyone is willing to fold and accept less. SO WHAT CHANGED?

So on the 3rd of May we will launch the new release and the reality is that no one will notice the issues. I wasn’t the one in the first place that felt they had to be fixed now.

SO WHAT CHANGED? The others didn’t have the conviction to stand up for what they believed to be important. If you believe in something are you willing to back it up or do you just take the easy way out? How much do you really believe in it?

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