Re: User Defined Fields - HELP PLEASE!

>> I developed (and maintain) an inventory system for a large company.
It has over 150 regular users, one of which is bucking really hard for 5-10 "User Defined Fields". Read that as free-form text fields. <<

My rtechnical answer would be to see if you can get him to put the text in a document management system, which probably where it belongs.

But I will assume this is more politcal than technical, so let's look for sneaky, rotten, underhanded answers.

1. Email the 150 users and tell them to contact this guy with their suggestions. I have them form a committee or a team to investigate the problem.

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be reorganized. Later in life, I was to learn that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing. And, what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization."

Petronius Arbiter, on the Roman Army - 210 B.C.

2) Tell him that he has to fill out a Sarbanes-Oxley form for each field and have it validated by independent auditors.

3) Tell him it will have to be taken out of his budget and that you have to hire expensive outside consultants.

4) Make him write detailed specs, with validation and verification rules. With free-form text, this can be real fun! Do you want it to speak French, for Canadian users? Bulgarian?

Then a spec should include computations and summaries on the new columns. And how the fit into the data warehouse.

5) Give him a list of existing projects from people higher up in the organization that he wishes you to cancel to get right onto this one. Send a copy of the memo to the superiors for feedback.

6) "Delay is the deathly form of denial." -- C. N. Parkinson. If you don't understand that, I will expalin it ... later. Received on Thu Feb 17 2005 - 16:07:32 CET