Monday
Dinner was simple tonight - hot links, mac and cheese, and grilled potatoes. I washed it down with a tall glass of iced tea.
We've entered the final run to the finish line on the project that has eaten so much of my time (and life) over the last couple of months. Stress will spike a time or two between here and the end, but the worst of it is over.
As the leader of this particular project my job is two fold - support the people in the grass doing the detail work and fret those details. So, if you can imagine it, my next nine days are going to be filled with details. Was this done? Is that done? Are those parts in place? Did we remember to check this? What is the contingency if that doesn't work. Details. Details. Details.
So it is move forward, circle back, move sideways, circle around, jump over there - sort of like line dancing, only without cowgirls.
I'll be online (and on email) off and on during the week, usually between tasks. There is always a fine line where any additional work becomes counter-productive - I can easily fret myself into a place where you make mistakes, simple mistakes, that have costly implications.
Tonight, as I wrapped up the day, I stopped and sat with my senior analyst. I often like to take a couple of minutes each day and sit with a different analyst and just get a feel for where they are - not the technical details, but a pulse of how they are feeling. Intuition. Gut feeling. Emotional check. Our intuition as humans is often far more finely tuned then we realize.
E., my senior analyst, was in a good mood, philosophical and confident. I worried a few of the details around and she assured me that every that could be lined up was lined up, and that we would be fine. She reminded me of some of the other projects we'd work on together - one's that dwarfed this one in size and complexity. One's that went well, very well, and very badly. (We've been working together now for twelve years, in a variety of roles, so we know each other well.)
Her confidence was a solid touchstone and helped still my own jitters. Her reminding me of perspective was another. It is good to work with people you like and respect and admire. I wish and hope that all of you have at least one of those relationships. Most of my team and I at work have been together now (more or less) for eight or nine years. I take care of them and they take care of me. Which is how it is supposed to work.
So, with one day down and four more to go in the final week (the last days of the project are the actual cut-over and go live), we are sitting pretty well. We know what needs to be done between here and there, and barring an attack of the flying monkeys, we'll make it. And we have been attacked by flying monkeys before. They come with the territory.
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