Walking in a minefield
I'm amazed that the internal auditor didn't find any errors during the 4 hours meeting. There are so many errors, yet he sees none. It is quite amazing. Its like walking in a minefield. One wrong step and you'll die of horrible death.
But he did bring up something that both me and my teamlead find it a non-issue. You see, we have a document during the initial product study. The document will contain the scope that we are covering in the request, expected schedule and estimated man days. Man days are number of days required for us to complete the request.
The keyword is, estimate.
You see, when we finish the developement of the program, we will generate a form and the form will have the actual man days we took to develope it. And obviously, the man days in the form will defer from the estimated man days in the document. Here is the problem. The auditor say the difference cannot be more than 20%. If the document say 10 man days, the actual man days can only be plus or minus 2 days. Anything more, to him, is considered failed.
Of cos it look ok on paper. But it is not practical at all. Scope and design changes during developement phrase. How can the estimated man day be accurate up to 20%? And lets take for example a program that is estimated to be 2 man days, but turn out only need 1 man day to complete. That is 50% different!
So, we tried to explain to him the meaning of estimate.
He tried coming out with many "preventive measures" that we can take to keep in this 20% range. But all of them have weakness and were quickly thrown out by my teamlead and me. It is just not possible to keep within that 20% range. We are on the ground level doing the work, we know it is impossible to keep that stupid 20%. You audit stuff, what do you know about sudden changes of requirements? The idiot who come out with that 20% never done developement before.
And most importantly, it is just an estimate!
Anyway, we finally come to a conclusion that if the mandays is more than 20% different, we will have to note down the reason somewhere in the final form. Argh, more thinks to document = more place to make errors. Whatever. I just hate auditor.
Anyway, this is just the internal auditor. External auditor will be coming soon. Another torture......
Well, at least I've settled the internal audit and survived. Guess I should reward myself with something sinful.
How about Fried Mars Bar from chippy.
Utterly sinful. It melted quickly in my mouth. But taste shoik. One is not enough. Serious!!!
Follow by a nice cup cafe mocha from starbucks. I guess that is the only drink I like in starbucks. All the other drink are too sweet for my liking. Oh ya, I'm on Singnet wireless hotspot now. Given to me FREE for 2 months because I was being forced to sign that stupid contract.
Oh well... since I'm already on it, why not just make full use out of it?
But he did bring up something that both me and my teamlead find it a non-issue. You see, we have a document during the initial product study. The document will contain the scope that we are covering in the request, expected schedule and estimated man days. Man days are number of days required for us to complete the request.
The keyword is, estimate.
You see, when we finish the developement of the program, we will generate a form and the form will have the actual man days we took to develope it. And obviously, the man days in the form will defer from the estimated man days in the document. Here is the problem. The auditor say the difference cannot be more than 20%. If the document say 10 man days, the actual man days can only be plus or minus 2 days. Anything more, to him, is considered failed.
Of cos it look ok on paper. But it is not practical at all. Scope and design changes during developement phrase. How can the estimated man day be accurate up to 20%? And lets take for example a program that is estimated to be 2 man days, but turn out only need 1 man day to complete. That is 50% different!
So, we tried to explain to him the meaning of estimate.
es·ti·mate: to judge tentatively or approximately the value, worth, or significance of
He tried coming out with many "preventive measures" that we can take to keep in this 20% range. But all of them have weakness and were quickly thrown out by my teamlead and me. It is just not possible to keep within that 20% range. We are on the ground level doing the work, we know it is impossible to keep that stupid 20%. You audit stuff, what do you know about sudden changes of requirements? The idiot who come out with that 20% never done developement before.
And most importantly, it is just an estimate!
Anyway, we finally come to a conclusion that if the mandays is more than 20% different, we will have to note down the reason somewhere in the final form. Argh, more thinks to document = more place to make errors. Whatever. I just hate auditor.
Anyway, this is just the internal auditor. External auditor will be coming soon. Another torture......
Well, at least I've settled the internal audit and survived. Guess I should reward myself with something sinful.
How about Fried Mars Bar from chippy.
Utterly sinful. It melted quickly in my mouth. But taste shoik. One is not enough. Serious!!!
Follow by a nice cup cafe mocha from starbucks. I guess that is the only drink I like in starbucks. All the other drink are too sweet for my liking. Oh ya, I'm on Singnet wireless hotspot now. Given to me FREE for 2 months because I was being forced to sign that stupid contract.
Oh well... since I'm already on it, why not just make full use out of it?
Looks like fried chicken to me... heh
Posted by
iRis |
3/18/2006 04:05:00 PM