Eric M Russell (6/6/2016)
I hate meetings where the important architectural decisions have already been made behind closed doors and all the only reason they put the development or DBA team on the invite list just to go through the motions. That type of management (quite rightfully) gets no respect.
Fortunately in this case it was along the lines of Phil's article.
Early on in my career I had a boss who said that an employee doesn't become valuable for 18-24 months as they don't know the business. The time scales I am not sure about but I agree with the general gist of his argument.
I find I have a much kinder view of outsourcing companies now than I did when I was a developer. An outsourcing company can only be as good as the people who communicate the requirements and fulfil dependencies that the outsourcing company needs to fulfil their obligation. I am not convinced that many people realise that staff at the bottom of the pecking order have to use their knowledge and experience of the organisation to fill in some rather large gaps in requirements. I have seen too many occasions where senior people have expressed disappointment in the quality of their staff without realising that
a) The staff are well aware of the senior opinion
b) The staff are actually no better or worse than any others on the market place
c) There is a failure to communicate the requirements and priorities
d) The requirements and priorities are diktats without regard for constraints or recognition that the constraints need addressing.