The SOAP task/sub-project I have been involved in all of a sudden became high-profile. This would mean that everybody in the organization knows what it is about.
This also meant that the project I had been informed was low-priority all of a sudden, should finish in practically no time, with status mails and status meetings all the time.
Well I can handle that I have tried it before, but it kind of screwed up my planning, since I run several projects in parallel for different clients.
So I wrote the other client and informed him that I was finishing off this high-profile project and after this focus would be on his project.
I received a mail later on from the client, asking why his project was not high-profile.
I am still pondering on how to explain him, that high-profile is not the same as high-priority and that I as a developer do not regard high-profile as a good thing.
High-profiling tends to involve a lot of people whom are not associated with the project directly and but still have an opinion about it, they do not know technical details and/or the history.
These people are often not technicians, technicians are often very good at recognizing high-profile projects and do not want to be involved in them, they will help you out, they will come with advice - but you can always tell that they think: "Thank god, it is not my project".
I guess I will have to explain the above thing to my client next week when we meet - leaving out the other people part.
Just say high-profile projects are mainly about politics because they involve too many people. Even manager types should immediately grasp what you are talking about and what your role is; they will just see it from their side and will not be aware of the way it looks from yours.
Re:
jonasbn on 2006-02-09T09:21:05
The fact is that I am really disappointed of the project management in this case, the project manager is a nice guy, but the project had very limited chance of success given the provided resources, I am not thinking about people, but machinery, environments etc. - so too much was promised to the partner expecting the SOAP interface.
The only good thing is that I have not been held accountable for my unsuccessful attempt to solve the task at hand.
The integration towards the partner has been stalled and I am currently regrouping and I have been given the task of preparing the platform for the SOAP web services, meaning we are finally doing things buttom up, since the existing frame-work and was not able to support SOAP.
