Kyle: And do I have to shovel the whole driveway or just the side the car's on?
by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2011/08/19 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2011/08/19/10197669.aspx
In the end, it reminded me of a South Park episode from years ago:
Sheila: Alright, fine Kyle, you can go to the Raging Pussies concert if you clean out the garage, shovel the driveway and bring democracy to Cuba.
Kyle: What's Cuba?
Gerald: A communist country run by a dictator named Fidel Castro.
Kyle: And do I have to shovel the whole driveway or just the side the car's on?
Sheila: The whole thing.
Kyle: Ah jeez.
It started as a push to get a new requirement added to the Quality Gates, so that failing the test would block the checkin
Meeting the folks who would have to do the work here, some pushback was expected given where we were in the cycle.
But they were going to set the bar pretty high.
They pointed out that without signoff from Jon Devaan and "the directors" (a senior collection of distinguished engineers, dev directors, and a VP) , it was really too late to get it done.
So I pondered my next move.
Kyle: And do I have to shovel the whole driveway or just the side the car's on?
It wasn't exactly bringing democracy to Cuba, but then the goal was also not as frivolous a a concert, either.
And we're talking about some really smart people, after all....
One of whom oversees the folks in charge of the quality gates, and another the underlying technology in question.
This turned out to be my first solo Exec review (Jan and Dave both had conflicts - I could have delayed, but no sense putting off a trip to the dentist!).
Anyway, the review went really well, and the meeting with the directors went really well too.
In fact, the change made it in earlier this month.
Mainly, I suspect, because some people figured an impossible task was better than a no. :-)
Well that and the case was compelling.
And Jan/Dave/Chuck were all very helpful!
Next step: bring Democracy to Cuba!
Ian Boyd on 22 Aug 2011 4:17 AM:
I think the post is missing one piece of interesting information; what concert?
Michael S. Kaplan on 22 Aug 2011 8:00 AM:
You mean from the South Park episode?
Ian Boyd on 22 Aug 2011 1:09 PM:
Hmm, unless "change made it in" meant the fix - and got the quality gate change.
Michael S. Kaplan on 22 Aug 2011 3:11 PM:
The quality gate change happened....