I really dislike this new project I am on. I am now stuck in a tech lead role which makes me more than an individual performer, but does not put me in charge--which is where I usually fall. When I was assigned the project my manager said he wanted me to get more technical experience with the tools being used. Unfortunately, I have worked with the lead architect and the requirements manager for a long period of time and they both are trying to pull me into their world. Normally, I wouldn't mind so much, but the project is well under way and I am new to the project and in a lead role. I need to be spending my time getting up to speed and creating order out of chaos.

As I said, the project has been going on for at least 4 or 5 months and I have been on the project approximately two weeks. In the two weeks since I joined, it has been determined that we need to go back and create high level process flow documents and the entire team is being reorganized into functional teams to fix some problems. There are numerous communications problems and no one seems to know what the other is doing and no one has control over the entire solution. I have been moved from an individual contributor role to a functional team lead role. I now have to figure out what my team needs to be focused on, determine what everyone is currently doing, and work a miracle with organization--all without missing any of the original delivery dates. The good news is that I actually have experience making this work as opposed to most of the other leads who are not usually in this sort of role. If I could keep the requirements manager and the architect off my back, it would be much easier.

Aside from all that, this project is requiring a lot of time and has an awful lot of meetings--something I am hoping to change. What this means is that I have not been able to play games with some friends either during lunch or after work. That part really sucks. It is kind of sad that the main reason I go to work is for the game playing. A good friend of mine actually was able to stay late tonight to play games and I was on the phone the entire time.

Also, what I forgot to mention is that there are a couple of sales pursuits that I was working on that are still requiring some of my time. Right now, I really need to be working on a cost model to separate the resources costs out by development phase so the salesman can try to align the potential client's payment with the actual costs incurred. I have to admit that I don't understand what he is doing, but it is definitely causing me more work.

Maybe I will win the Powerball tonight. Maybe...