D.I.Y and Project Management fusion

Whilst most people I know are off on holidays this weekend (Easter), I have the unenviable pleasure of decorating my house. Like most people I have been doing this for what appears like eternity. I wouldn't say I am a DIY addict, but I have completed my fair share of decorating rooms over the years.

So this weekend over the 4 days I have to decorate our hall, landing and stairs covering the ceiling, walls, woodwork and doors. Fit new door handles, hang pictures then prepare a bedroom and decorate ready for the new carpet that is being laid on Friday week.

Now, I actually quite enjoy decorating and once this sprint is complete I would have conquered the majority of the house. The people before us clearly never bothered with general house maintenance and as such we have had a few issues but I am pleased to say that it will soon look stunning and be a joy to live in.

The reason for the rush is that we have guests coming from overseas. I say overseas, I should say our homeland. We emigrated a few years ago and are lucky enough to have regular visitors from home. The only real trouble is that due to the regularity of visits people don’t notice progress. Especially those unpainted walls or the lack of carpet in such and so area etc.

I call it progress as I know the amount of effort that is required to make a room look great. I could have easily over painted the old walls and had a reasonable finish. But, I am an IT guy and I notice these holes in the walls, the creases in the wall paper above the door and window corners. I notice the way the light reflects shadows if the plastering is uneven and a light is on in the other room. I notice those blemishes on the wall that will be covered by a picture. Even though these blemishes are covered I know that underneath that they are still going to be there.

Perhaps, just a little, I am too much of a perfectionist when it comes to decorating, but I justify that due to my software development background. I can't craft code or applications with a bad user interface. Sometimes, I need to get under the covers of the code and reorganise and repair previous faults and issues. I wish that the previous owners of the house had invested a little time in their maintenance strategy!!!!!.

As I find myself re-engineering virtually every aspect of every room I can't help but wonder why those lazy sods did nothing.

Money could have been a factor, as could apathy, but just like with computer systems, a little bit of routine maintenance is much better than a re-architecting or re-building project.

Of the houses I have owned and renovated over the years two have stood out as being maintenance nightmares. After analysing the small amount of data I have available my only logical conclusion is to never buy a house from a couple whose surname starts with ‘T’.

The Tibbett’s and the Tankard’s. You know who you are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

I have to plan to do some things in the most efficient order. I need to do detailed preparation for some areas and have to demonstrate my good time management skills, ensure key items are performed as per the critical path, and most importantly, I need to escalate any slippage in the project to the project manager ASAP. In this case my wifelet.

There is also the added pressure in that some of the tasks need to be performed out of standard business hours. This is to avoid kiddies fingers touching freshly painted surfaces and to minimise the odour of the paint fumes permeating throughout the house. So Saturday nights glossing will commence from 7pm until the small hours. If it is anything like before (another house) then I will see daylight before I see the bottom of the paint can.

Actually that reminds me. I do need to remember to check the paint levels, application tools (Brushes), removal and cleaning tools (Sandpaper and Turpentine) before I start.

This is a pre-commencement artefacts scan. Nothing worse than getting dressed up (old clothes) ready for the painting effort, only to realise that there is a fraction of the paint required to do the job. Then you have the decision to make. Do I drive to the DIY store wearing these old paint ridden clothes?, or do I change to something more practical for the purposes?

I should be OK with resources, i.e. me. Anyhow, adding additional resources to a project at this late stage tends to make it late anyhow. And with the dependencies for some of the tasks, adding additional resources now won’t help. Some things just need to be done in a linear fashion.

I remember an ex colleague of mine from years gone by called Yuriy. He was a wonderfully intelligent software technician, he had his quirks and an abundance of quality phrases. One that stood out in particular was “Lee, it takes nine months to make a baby, you cannot add nine women to the project to get it done in a month”.

Now Yuriy is quite right with this statement, although I guess if you do add nine women to the project then you have a higher probability of creating that baby and much more fun during the project initiation phase.

So touch wood, I should be ok this weekend. The resultant smile from the wifelet, the sense of personal satisfaction and the thought of those visitors saying. “Wow!, well done Lee, this looks nice………” should make it all worth while.

This most certainly seems like project management to me and apart from the deliverables (decorating) and a lack of written ‘signed off’ requirements ("Just get it painted"). This could be one of a hundered projects I have completed over the years.

So, always plan your projects, do your analysis and seek approval before you commence. My background in software development and management should come in handy even if it does feel like a busman’s holiday.

Happy Easter.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.