microfocus cobol defs anyone?

[Ed Goodman]

Wow yarnseeker, sounds worse the more you talk about it.

jashaul:
"With the current project, I'm supposed to have the technical design done ahead of having full requirements. I'm not quite sure exactly how I'm supposed to get that right"

In the mind of your management, you arent supposed to get that right, you are supposed to get it started. I'm guessing your management folks were never technical resources. They are probably business school kids that think the checklist is the project.

My advice:
Put together the MOST basic of specs, ie "Start program, read all records from input file (database)", generate record count, end program." Make sure it's in the right format. Include all of the sections for the document that are required. Put an actual picture of the record counts report in there.

If you have a section for "outstanding issues", list the requirements. If you DON'T have that section, list only the firm requirements that have been decided, and state that the design is based on those. Put the non-firm requirements ina section called "Likely updates."

This will give the process weenies something to print out and staple for the next big meeting where they actually talk about how it's supposed to work. If they have SOMETHING, it will make them feel like there is progress, and let them calm down enough to actually think about it.

Go ahead and start coding to the basic spec, with the understanding that you will probably have to throw it out and start over. At least you'll get the non-technical overhead started, like defining the program name, putting in requests for databases, psbs, JCL, job schedules, transaction IDs... those kinds of things.

It gets worse later on. Once you have "something to show them," you will get a bunch of corrections/clarifications from the testing group. These will have little to do with the actual specs that you got before. Don't let it frustrate you, think of it as the design you've been BEGGING for. Now you can build it he way the users want, and everyone is happy.

[JimMoore]

Ed,

LOL! Jaded, cynical and 100% accurate.

[yarnseeker]

I'm used to churn. I have rarely worked anywhere that there were specs that were even close to 100% accurate but at least they had a general idea of what they wanted which at least gave me something of a warm fuzzy enough to start my coding.

This doesn't seem true in this case and what is worse is that this is an application that affects financials. So yeah, I'm a little leary to code w/o actual specs and i'm sure at some point, I'll have major heartburn.

[dbzthedinosaur]

Originally Posted by yarnseeker

This doesn't seem true in this case and what is worse is that this is an application that affects financials.

a SAP installation is probably the most fun of any. To be installed properly, means someone has to know enough about the business to provide values for the 2 or 3 billion parms that basic SAP has.
I have found few firms that allocate the proper resouce to the design/installation group. Normally, you end up teaching them how their business runs.

depending on which part of the world you are working, often the true business is not - available. Worked at the Republic Bank of Kuwait 1980-1981. The Palestinians were the middle managers and were stealing it so fast for Arafat, that the daily balance looked like a roller coaster. 18 and 19 year-old secretaries had million-dollar CD's (at very favorable rates - employees) that matured every 2-days - that is the interest was paid out every 2 days. Took us two years to install GL, and it was a frustrating and often sabotaged chore every day.

[yarnseeker]

luckily this is not SAP. It is much much smaller.

i have worked on SAP R3 at 2 different companies. We had nicknames for it

Select Another Package

or

Submit And Pray




I did learn a couple of German words. Drunken is not about drinking. It relates to printing. Abgebrachen (sp?) Well I translate that to "it's broken" LOL

[CaptBill]

Originally Posted by dbzthedinosaur

...The Palestinians were the middle managers and were stealing it so fast for Arafat, ...

Oh surely you jest!

[Hatrack]

Yarn with every post I am enjoying retirement more and more. feel 4 U