I have been on this big big big project for over a year now, it is like that’s my only life, nothing else, I felt like I was living under a rock for over a year. This project has been a mess from the start. The project had a challenging dynamic from the start, where the direction was heavily driven by the client, and by the time I got onto the project, the foundation had already been set.
This project can be summarized into 2 words, “Org Migration”. The client has a current system, which they would like to move off of, cause it is a bit hard to manage, and they would like to add couple features to enable them to run their business smoothly; plus they would like to remove the dependency, as some of the tasks can only be performed by certain people, and when those people go on vacation, they are basically being left hanging. This is no easy task, we were working with an organization with big amount of tech debt in their existing system, and they have a database since 2000s, so 20 years worth of data. If you are new to this, think about when your windows system was updated from xp to 10, how much fuss it caused. The point being, moving a group from one system to another is never an easy task.
The whole project went for over a year, I have been in charge of data overall, we moved a great amount of data from one system to another, almost everything. It is a challenging task, yet simple one too, the process is mundane though. You take data from one system and put them into another one, and making sure all of the data would fit into the new data structure in the new system, and also making sure the new process would be able to pick up the data and process them, which is the hardest part. Actually, let me correct that, having the client understand this part is hard. The working relationship with the client added its own layer of complexity to the project overall.
The whole project was off from beginning, the plan was to run table by table, along with that, figuring out the process. I raised concerns early on, but in the midst of a fast-moving project, it was difficult for those concerns to gain traction in time. Then it ends in a mess. I had made this mistake before, I was running an app dev back in 2015, and we built the database first before we lined up on exactly what the front end should look like, in other words, we didn’t have a good idea on how to properly retrieve the data, or what data we were looking to retrieve, so building a database before understanding how to use the data is just backwards, we ended up redoing the whole project; and that’s exactly what’s happening here in this project.
As for me, what I gained out of this project has been a lot. Being part of a big project like this, give me an idea on how a big project is run, and also how a big project SHOULD NOT be run, also how crucial strong leadership is to a project’s success — having someone at the helm who can align the team, trust the right people, and create space for subject matter experts to do their best work. Another perspective I learned out of this project is “communication” as how my boss would like to call it. Effective communication can boost team’s productivity, in that way, we can help move the work further. I am a really straightforward person, I call things out as how they are, but I now learned that there are ways you can be straightforward, at the same time being respectful of it. This has been working really well on this project. Early on, it was a struggle to communicate concerns in a way that resonated with the team, but over time I was able to find more effective ways to share what I was seeing and help steer things in a better direction. I am an introvert, it did take a lot of practice.
This client I have been working with for over a year are really reactive, they don’t have a proper plan, and just take things as they come, when things come up, they just react to whatever comes up, honestly, a lot of things we encounter, if the client would work with us and to have proper plans, those issues would have been mitigated up-front. To work in an environment like that, where reactions can be quick and emotional, I learned to take a step back, a lot of times they just like to throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks or if anything sticks, then this is the time to ask, why are you throwing spaghetti onto the wall? Was it to just see if your spaghetti is cooked? If so, then there are different ways to achieve that, so have you thought about those methods? If you just would like to throw spaghetti for fun, then we need to direct you to some other ways to “have fun”. There are different ways to solve a problem, it is the consultants’ job to communicate those solutions, and raise the flag when we see things are at risk, now if they will take it or not is out of our hands.
Overall, I have grown a lot in the past year, I am a better leader now, and through this project, I also learned my own capability, it is more than I am aware of. I need to trust myself, and know that I can always find a way out no matter what. Any hurdle is a chance to learn more about yourself, and a chance to improve.