Not sure why you posted this Thread but, education, work, family, friends, acquaintances, notice my turtle? Life in general if I can will be approached at my pace and not the worlds pace If I can manage it, I hate working on projects with a timeline, but I will say if it’s something I really want to do, it’s done first, and if it’s something I really really want to do, I bleed it out to the end because I know when it’s finished I can’t work on it anymore. lol

Why do something when you can mull it around in your head and do it better.


kv

 

As a technical consultant and project engineer, I learned very early in my career to ask several questions when I was assigned a task.
The first one was "When is this needed by?". Their answer was always "yesterday" so I had to reset their expectations to get a reasonable answer. Once I knew that, I could starts a feasibility study to see if the task could be done with the available time, resources and limitations, before I made any commitment..
The second one was "How important is it, compared to the tasks you have already assigned me". If you don't establish that, you will never be able to fit them all into your schedule and you will never deliver any on time.
Now I am retired, and spend most of my time doing graphic arts and tinkering with electronics. My schedules are flexible, dependent mostly on delivery times of ordered components but I still ask those questions when my wife assigns me any new tasks.
Regards,
Keith

 

As a technical consultant and project engineer, I learned very early in my career to ask several questions when I was assigned a task.
The first one was "When is this needed by?". Their answer was always "yesterday" so I had to reset their expectations to get a reasonable answer. Once I knew that, I could starts a feasibility study to see if the task could be done with the available time, resources and limitations, before I made any commitment..
The second one was "How important is it, compared to the tasks you have already assigned me". If you don't establish that, you will never be able to fit them all into your schedule and you will never deliver any on time.
Now I am retired, and spend most of my time doing graphic arts and tinkering with electronics. My schedules are flexible, dependent mostly on delivery times of ordered components but I still ask those questions when my wife assigns me any new tasks.
Regards,
Keith

It's good to be retired. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Avoiding the underhanded tactics of the folks who assign the tasks is among the most valuable of lessons. The other one is to make sure the requirements are clear and that "done" has an excruciatingly precise definition.

 

I was working with a very senior (as senior as you can get without being a vice president) who was developing a high volume product. The conversation lead to a discussion of product cost. He said he had padded the Bill of Materials and was ready to swap out the expensive parts for less expensive parts for when the expected high pressure comes from above to reduce costs. Among the smartest guys -he knows how to manage up. He was very successful and saved hundreds of millions of dollars (or billions) compared to going elsewhere for the design.

 

As time and resources permit:

1. Make it work
2. Make it fast, small, cheap...pick an adjective to suit
3. Make it elegant

 

Not sure why you posted this Thread

I posted this originally in technical repair because giving good estimates is an important skill that's used daily to manage expectations.. The powers that be moved it to off-topic so it's now, indeterminate.

 

As a follow up on my process of being assigned projects, once the timeframe was established, I drew up an acceptance document which detailed sign-off criteria for everything that was negotiated. Once that was accepted, the project became real.
Keith