For the last several weeks I've been working on a client document that has been giving me terrible headaches. It's supposed to be a user's guide - a basic "how-to" to wrap up the project, scheduled to end in December. I'm only one of many who have come and gone, but I was brought in fairly early in the game by another of the senior consultants and between the two of us we've watched all kinds of bizarre things happen. The client didn't want a needs analysis, project plan retreat or a business case development or any of the other buzzword bingo products that are supposed to (and, if they're done right, actually do) guide the project and the team, making sure that every little piece ends up fitting and working together at the end when everyone disbands and the client is left with the product.


Fine, whatever - it's their deal, right? Well, writing the guide is torture because while using the product is easy to use but hell to explain. There's no rational reason anything is the way it is, it's just all action/reaction and many of the various functions were added along the way in much more complex ways than if they had been expected all along and could have been planned for.


It's kind of like you hiring a contractor to build you a house but you refuse to say what kind of house or what kind of features you want it to have. "It need to have four rooms and a roof," you say. Then, when the contractor builds a square house with four square rooms and is preparing the roof you ask, "Hey! Where's my attached garage? Or my dormers?" So a garage and dormers are figured out and added in. Then, as the siding is being installed you want to know why it's only one floor and where is the breakfast nook, anyway? And on and on until the final structure, although well-built and functional, bears no resemblance whatsoever to your original desire and you don't know why.


So this is the situation I'm in and trying to document.


So I'm punting and putting it all on hold for a week to take the kids on a vacation. I'm hoping that a litle time and distance will spark some kind of inspiration. Truthfully, though, I'd settle for a plain old good idea; inspiration seems rather pushing it at this point.


So I'll be back late next week. Stay tuned!