(Original "programmer" magazine)
What is the most fear of the project manager? It is often not the complexity of demand when communicating with users, and even the frequent changes in early demand are not the main problems they worry. Their most worrying is often the will of the customer's leadership.
Everyone knows that an important task before the project payment is the project acceptance report will be reported by the competent leaders. The success or failure of the project is often here, so many software companies generally invite the details of the project, skilled, superior and expressive The personnel have a tandem. The leaders of the supervisor generally do not understand the details of the project, of course, there is no time to understand, but he absolutely has a high-level saying on the project.
China's software project is often black and humorous. Program managers often extend the rights of leaders to the software projects, so that software in the development process, data logic and workflow are in an unprecedented dilemma.
Leaders participate in the operation of the software, often hopes that they can do their desired, not only to give him to high privileges, but also hope that his operation cannot leave any handle, that is, there is no record in the system log. The participation of leadership makes the privilege of the project become confusing, workflows and normative shapes are done, and more serious is that the consistency of data is often not guaranteed.
I have been responsible for the development of an oil field project, now I think it is still a dream! However, by analyzing this case, we can know that China's enterprise applications are also facing a different kind of trouble.
Project Background:
For the convenience of the narrative, I said that this oil field is the Tahe Oilfield (in order to cause unnecessary troubles, this is of course a pseudonym), the biggest resources in Tahe Oilfield are national oil, there are too many work on oil to do, exploration , Logging, drilling, but well, etc. There are many departments below the oil field, the most important department is the development of Oilfield, responsible for the declaration, tendering and project implementation of all projects in the oil field. All the projects in the oil field are not to be made by professional companies under the oilfield (of course, even if they do it, they can't finish), but the public bidding for all relevant qualifications at home and abroad. Many of the construction teams of many companies have settled in oilfield, and these construction units are collectively referred to as Party B. Everyone knows that the project in the oil field is 10 million, and there are hundreds of thousands, and do not do it for the company to do it entirely by the Development Division. In order to reduce people-oriented decision-making factors, the Oilfield Development Division decided to develop such systems and can manage the construction teams of Party B, and provide the system to provide decision-making basis.
The system solution is provided by a consulting firm in Beijing. It is designed by a Ph.D. of several school management. The plan for the team is comparable, and the algorithm is complicated. It is not mentioned here.
The system we do now is "Team Management System", which is "Team Management System", "In addition to managing the information of Party B team, the system must be implemented, annual trial, and most critical to Party B team. Operation assessment (ie the performance evaluation of the construction team) The algorithm is obtained, here is not a table).
Everyone may have already seen it clearly, and the assessment score is directly related to whether a team can undertake a project and can participate in the online bidding. So how is the score of a team? According to the design in the system solution, it is determined by the score interface (browser) score provided by the various professional departments of the type of team (the score here is not directly to a team of 70, 80, but The team's performance is selected in various aspects (assessment indicators), and then the system is based on the weight of these assessment indicators to draw the score of the team). The brothers of the project team have been a month, and all functions have been achieved in the eve of the acceptance of the project. The logic of the entire system, the data has been repeatedly tested, and it really feels seamless. At this time, the head of the project (actually the contact of the project, I am a specific responsible development) on the eve of the acceptance, I want to see the leadership leaders first. At the time, I was present, the demo explained for a long time, anyway, leadership is not satisfied, don't say there is a problem, harm me where I wondered for half a day.
Later, the person in charge of the project said that the leadership means that how to put an end to the professional department because of the benefits of a certain team, and give the team to raise the score. I listened, I immediately had a silence (because the team's assessment score is not completely decided by a certain professional department, and the scores of other supporting management departments such as safety department are also important, and the scoreholders, system Detailed records are made in the log. If the discovery score is not worthless, if the reality is clear, the reputation and performance of the A team is stronger than the B team, but the score is less than the B team, and the team can appeal online, thus canceling An examination of an assessor). After listening to my argument, the person in charge still shook his head, saying that you didn't understand the meaning of leadership. I immediately realized! It turns out that our system is designed to be too fair, the past is determined by leaders (if the team is involved in the bidding, whether the project assessment acceptance passes), now it is made up of the machine, this is what he is being taken, how can we be satisfied with us system!
The problem has already come out, what should I do? The project team held an emergency meeting overnight, the answer is: change! Give the supervisor leadership authority, all the score he wants how to change it. After 2 weeks of hard fight, finally completed the task, and the project has exceeded the scheduled date. This time, the head of the project will give the new program to the leadership, this leader can laugh, very satisfied. However, however, the new problem came out again. When the log is queried, what kind of people doing the leadership, clear the records. And the supervisor leaders do not stop one, how to balance their rights. The project leader is another elephant, and it is not finished.
In the next day, everyone can already guess, the entire project is laid around these factors that have nothing to do with software and technology, through the permission sign, if it is the leader of the supervisor, the system log does not record the things they do, Leaders, system logs record a part of information. In short, my feeling is that a good end project has become a fight farm in the rights of leaders.
Although the project is seriously over, because the work leadership is satisfied, not only has no penalty, but more than 100,000 rounds of development fees and maintenance fees.
The most funny thing is that when the final project training, the four people were divided into them, and the contents of the people were different. They tried to make each group of people felt their rights in their lives. They were in the system. Existential and owned. Oilfield leaders also ask the company to strictly confidential to the training content, otherwise it will be fined! In my opinion, this project will be a very successful project (so I have always retained the source code of the first edition, I think it is almost garbage on the source code of the later version, because it The fundamental purpose of the company has developed this project, that is, reduce the impact of human factors on team evaluation, assessment, and project bidding.
We know that the fundamental purpose of corporate informationization has reduced communication costs between departments, and an important factor is to provide a relatively open fair office environment, minimizing the operating environment. However, such a successful project, because of the intervention of the leadership, finally became a seemingly confirmed to Party B, the fact that this unfair and more concealment, the right to carry the right to carry out the purpose of the company's informatization . Such a case cannot not cause our deep thinking and play.
Project managers often laugh together, we are actually developing for leadership, not end users. (Of course, leadership is also a user), only projects that are satisfied with the project is a successful project!
Software companies generally desperately desperately meet the needs of corporate users, and will never be refused to implement some fairness or morality because of this software itself. As long as the company is willing to pay, what kind of illegal chaos can be made to you, which involves a new topic, software ethics or software moral problem, the topic of domestic software morality is only in software illegal With the level, there is no attention to the software itself. Suppose a software itself is used to reach a certainty or despicable attempt, such software, do we still do it? This is a problem in front of all of our software companies and practitioners.
After completing this project, I feel that I have become a shameless programmer, and I have a thing that is a tiger. The programmer should only pay attention to technical issues, not to consider other ethical issues, especially the moral issues of the software itself. I think most of the programmers will say, I do what other Dongdong do, I think there are only two words, "implementation".
As Microsoft, there is a back door (unconfirmed) in the operating system, people condemned Microsoft to violate software morality. What is the moral issue of the software itself? Of course, we must never count on the software company's high wind, not moving in the forefront, and the meaning of righteousness refuses to implement such software programs.
I remembered the example of "computer fortune telling", which is clearly superstitious, not shaped on high-tech coat. And I have done, although I have won a lot of profits for the company, do you have a common place with your computer? It was originally to eliminate people's factors or corruption, but the corruption behavior and human factors were hidden deeper, leaders can say that the emperor is the tendering team determined by the system.
We may wish to think about it in the deep, why do so much ERP projects do not have a good implementation in China? Why is there so many workflows, very standardized finances, management software, many companies are not willing to spend money? And the listening company stays under the great management model of human factors.
Below is another story related to this, in order to accelerate corporate informationization, a large power company purchases a set of systems from a large software company (the company provides large power enterprise ERP solutions), after using the trial stage Not satisfied, I feel that I don't conform to "China's national conditions" (I have a contempt and questioning, I don't understand what I have in China, I can't accept the advanced management thoughts of people. Technology! This term has also become a model of many people refused to be in line with the world today!), So, a series of modifications and suggestions (as long as modifications, as long as modifications, as long as the original software price is also added) cost). Surprisingly, however, German companies refuse to modify, you don't buy my products, I don't destroy the software's workflow and standard logic. Because such a workflow specification is almost useful in all European power plants. Finally, the power company leaders actually gave up this software, turned to find a power university to develop a "Chinese character" ERP system. We know that software is not only the computerization of the daily work, but also assumes the responsibility of regulating people and business behavior. The key is whether leadersome determination and confidence really want to improve the management decision-making level of the enterprise, and give up some personal rights and interest.
Therefore, the right to leaders is often the biggest obstacle in the process of informationization in China. It is also the biggest killer of successful software projects!
