garbage in - garbage out

Today I screwed up a deliverable. Actually, it was one of my reports that continued to work on a report for four weeks based on garbage data...

I thought there was something smelly about the fact that she wanted to cross-check her final results with the supplier of the data. Quants -especially those who know their way around the datawarehouse - tend to be headstrong, introvert and resistant to interference. On the other hand, they can be obsessed with precision. So when such a person turns to a colleague from another dept to check on a result, there is sh*t under the carpet.

Obviously there was pressure on delivery ot that report, but I should have detected the abnormality much earlier. Now I have to say to the internal client (and a bunch of directors around him): "sorry, no report, and guess what: we lost 20 days in the process".

Another team member turned out to be stacking up delays on her long-term deliverable, due to the large number of urgent requests in her mailbox. It took me over 4 weeks to figure that out - she was always confirming she was OK. But, hey, don't micromanage me or ask me to deliver medium quality...

In other words,  revision of several intake processes required...