I had a long meeting scheduled today. It is for a program asset database - a central location for all documentation, references and all information on every program we own, build or use. The idea started small and has been growing daily as more and more departments think of information that they want to store.

Today's meeting was to go over the high level requirements and get a basic development strategy. This way a decent development estimate could be made and we could take that to the Legion of Doom executive review board for cost approval. It was going to be a hellabad meeting.

I got there a few minutes early as usual. I set up the laptop, got on the network and hooked up to the overhead projector. I even plugged into the wall since the meeting was probably going to go longish and I didn't want to deal with any battery issues or that incredibly irritating screen-dimming.

People started arriving. The Vice President of Development. A Director of Application Development. Another Director of Application Development. The Vice President of Product & Quality Assurance. It dawned on me that I had all of the top people* responsible for all of our product development together in one room**. That's how big the scope for this program had become. I would have been nervous but my flight/fight reflex had landed firmly in fight mode.

The meeting went sort of like this:

Me: I sent out the high level requirements with the meeting request and I've fleshed them out a bit in this handout.

[Jim distributes the handouts]

Director of Application Development #1 (hereafter referred to as DAD1): Handouts? Wow. I don't remember the last time I got a handout at a meeting.

Me: Hey, nothing but the best from you guys. Now I know we are mostly concerned with high level items but I want you to take a look at this list so you'll know the sort of information we'll be storing and how we want it segregated.

[Shuffling of papers as people look at the list]

Me: Okay. First question is does any of this look un-doable?

[General head shaking and some "nopes" and "definitely do-ables"]

Me: Second question. Do we have anything now that can be modified to fit these requirements?

[Silence, then the lighting of eyes one by one around the table as the proverbial 100 watt bulbs appear above each head.]

DAD#1: Didn't we purchase the asset module from MegaMonsterDataCorp?

DAD#2: Yeah. It's in early implementation right now.

VP of Development: That should fit most of these requirements out of the box.

DAD#1: And whatever doesn't fit, it really shouldn't be a problem modding it. That's what it's set up for.

Me: So we can fulfill this project with existing assets?

DAD#2: Yup. For the vast majority of it anyway.

Me: Fantastic. Thank you for your time, gentlemen.***

A meeting scheduled for 2+ hours that was set to be a brain frying session was over in 5 minutes. The program that we were setting ourselves up to defend to the death against the Hordes of the Abyss executive review board could be accomplished with software we already own and a minimum of development time.

I am proud to say that I did not spooge in my pants, though it was a near thing.

* Except for the Director of 3rd Party Software Integration**** who ironically could have saved us from this meeting altogether if he had read the meeting invite and attachment instead of just clicking on "accept" and then not showing up.

**** Not his actual title but it should be because that's what he actually does.