RedAsh's Blog

Today is an interesting day, Finally my first time investing using real cash in mutual fund. Commodities and global resources... its raising and its raising good.

Another interesting day at work at Spring Singapore SCS, I am currently involved in a project work in migrating PC from a Novell environment to a Window XP environment. The project lead is Louis, a "Software engin Nerd". He is a nice guy but he is totally disorganised.

In this project above Louis is a guy call "Zul", his boss, who seems to dislike me. And the project team, Terrace and another chinese Hokkien-style guy. The project team are the key development team who will act on Louis Plan; they know inside out of their job - from scripting to database n server setup
(they set up the test server - a requirement from the project team, an also a basic requirement of any software project)

HOwever, the issue here is that Louis is the overall admin coordinator, and he is causing the BIG bottleneck in this project. "He is THE bottleneck." Louis is suppose to set up the AD environment policy (AD security policy) for the server "Hardening" (also known as the implementation of the security policy). He screwed up on some security policies and took ages to resolve with the help of a network specialist (extra cost). But the biggest screw up is that when the test servers are setted up, he procastinate and let the test servers sitting idle. He never test the applications, never use the test serveers to test the policies (and hence the hangover), but the WORST of all, he does not accept the advice of others with grace.

On the earlier date, Peter got fed up with Louis over the matter that whenever Peter enters the server room, Louis will want him to do things immediately. Which is SOOO wrong. As Louis should plan the things carefully, then give time to Peter (and many others) to react. Rather than crafting something out of the air (from the stretch pad of his brain) and change it every now and then. And one thing Lousi did that kills him is that he introduced alot of irrelevant work for the others (like changing a password several times, or setting up more accounts)

SOLUTION: Draw up a version 1 plan, then alter the plan accordingly and update the version.

From today's observation, Louis had to crawl at his head for things he set up and had forgotten. If he had a plan, he can at least refer to it, and leave his brain space for something more important.

Everyone seems to be losing their impatience with Louis, even Alvin, who is so helpful in the last week, got kinda irritated with Louis. And Orrendo, the nice smiling buddha guy with ambition, who seems so friendly with Louis, also peck at his back. All are talking about Louis's "chop".

It seems that Louis already had a previous case owith Lotus Notes where he actually deleted all users' profiles. Now in this desperate times, he suggested another desperate measures, he suggest giving ALL the users the administrative rights... people work by closing all the nslowly open one by one, he worked the opposite by opening all and closing one by one <= a doing that by itself is an guaranteed "CHOP".

Today I also had a teaste of Louis "last minute" plan. He wants me and Han to test-run the migration at 5.30 pm. Time for home... dude. Orrendo comes overs at 7pm and tease us that whether we felt "his" power and are we high yet? Oh well, kinda high, but looking at the poor guy, ... lets give him another chance...

I had learnt a lot at the office today, not just AD environment but also of Novell. But MOST importantly, how the BIG BOYS run their work. They segregate their tasks and priortised their work. For instance, for the project meeting tomorrow, he knows what he wants, he need the Spreadsheet for the project meeting regarding which user for which folder, and he only wants the VIP only. The other users do matter but the VIP is the key. ~ of course while he says he only wants one, providing all is what he actually wanted. This task he assigned to the development team, but Alvin took up that task.

One thing that kinda irritates me is that while I try to help by helping Louis analysing the situation, Louis pick up the paper and tease me that it like poly days notes. My gain his lost, at least I learnt a lot from him. At least he accpeted the help on "Policy Setting" i downloaded from Microsoft. And that did resolve the policy issue.

If I am him, my SOLUTION will be...

making the best out of the worst...

that is...

Request for time to run the test and test cases with a proper plan. Even the project may fail and have slippage, at least the there will not be a system diseaster, and the project would at least be completed. Then last of all, I would hand in my resignation letter at the end of this project.

For I know at this point of time... the "CHOP" is in...