Pro Developer - Creating Your Dream Project

Some of this stuff has been rather conceptual in nature, so let me give you a working example to put it into a practical, day to day context that you can relate to. A programmer friend and I were working at a large corporation where our team had to implement a new dynamic link library for data entry forms & validation each time a new sale was made, to match the client's requirements. Each iteration was taking them around 6 months to complete, as the validation logic was complex.

Our project manager was constantly being harassed by management about timelines, missed deadlines, impatient clients, etc. He also had the typical headaches of the requirements changing more often than the wind changes direction. In short, he wasn't having any fun. Neither were we. As projects go, this one sucked.

My friend observed that this was obviously a job for a form generation tool. We brainstormed, put together a quick dog & pony app, and explained to our manager how we could kick out this tool in less time than it took for one customer's form library and that when we were done, what took 6 months to code by hand could be accomplished in a couple of weeks. He only had two words to say to us. "Do it." We then went off and played with the latest technologies and had a blast. When we were done, the tool truly delivered as we promised.

By the way, remember the bit about not advertising what you're proposing? The other programmers got wind of our little scheme after the decision was already made, and were unhappy. They were contractors (as were we) and they were afraid that this would put them out of a job. (I'll skip my normal tirade about ethics for the sake of expediency.) So, after we delivered a killer tool and moved on to the next contract, they scrapped it and went back to 6 months of coding by hand. What did we care? We had a blast, delivered on our promises, and left a project manager with the impression that we were equal to the gods of old Olympus. In fact, the only reason the programmers succeeded in scrapping the tool in the first place is because our manager got promoted. If that doesn't sound like the classic win / win scenario to you, then you've been fiddling with that slide rule when I wasn't looking instead of paying attention.

One last bit of advice. Start small. You'll get better at this as you go, and nothing increases your ability to succeed like previous successes. You'll soon build a reputation as a "make it happen" person. In fact, before you know it, you'll probably be ushering the rest of us out of your well equipped office and closing the door so you can talk to your girlfriend. Of course, we'll all just think you were lucky.