Tactfully remind the boss of the "butt-munch manager in our IT department" about the First Law of Systems Analysis:
"A new system has to work at least as well as the system it replaces".
Go along with the B-BM's plans to 'update' the web-site infrastructure; make sure that your User Base is aware that "Changes Are Being Made"; make sure that The Users know that you are their friend and contact point when the Changes go Sour; Help the B-MM implement his Grand (and flawed) Vision. In short look at this as an Opportunity. Here is your chance to learn 'new' technology (learning is always good), become a Hero to the Users (for looking out for their interests during this time of turmoil), and be in position when the Drech starts drifting toward the fan to reduce the User Impact.
Seriously, there are a few questions that need to be addressed by the User Community and the B-MM's upper managers:
- Are the Users happy with what they have?
- How much is it going to cost to re-implement just that functionality?
- Are there projects that can better serve the Company? Investing time and money to re-invent an already functioning wheel is not a Bright Idea, with respect to the Corporate bottom line.
- Are there new functions that the Users need/want?
- Can they be easily done in the New Technology and integrated with what already have in place? If not, then the cost of Re-Inventing the Wheel becomes part of the BM-M's problem. Have fun selling that to the Accountants -- cost of adding the New User Widget in the New Technology: $x; cost of re-writing our entire web-site so that the New Widget will integrate: $XXXX....
- Can you easily implement the New Functionality in Perl? (" Dear BM-M things are pretty quiet this week. Oh, I got bored last Saturday afternoon and I wrote a Perl implementation of of the New Widget. I've shown it to a couple of the Uber-Users, and they loved it and suggested a couple of tweaks, which I put together for them over lunch yesterday. The U-U are now asking about the roll-out plans for the New Widget. I told them that you'd have to make that call. By the way, I have some ideas for the New New-Widget that I'd like to float by everyone. Are you free for a meeting with the U-U tomorrow morning at 0900 to discuss the schedule? Love, OGB")
- Reguardless of what happens, get your resume refreshed. A BM-M who wants to have change for the sake of increasing his budget is likely to go hunting for scape-goats then things fail.
Update -- added missing close-tag.
----
I Go Back to Sleep, Now.
OGB
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