Question 5: Will I Receive Strong Oversight?

Your boss must ultimately be responsible for your work as a programmer.

I once turned over to my manager a project that changed all six of the customer invoicing programs in a multi-billion-dollar company. The change was fairly minor, but there was a high risk that the company would not invoice millions of dollars if the change failed. I included comprehensive programming and test documentation with the project turnover to production, and I asked my programming manager to review it.

Then I heard again the dreaded words: Paul, I trust you.

My boss most probably does have reason to trust my programming work, but even after fifty-two successful projects turned into production, I wanted the assurance of a review and inspection of my work by programming management.

It is all too easy for a programmer to misread, misunderstand, misinterpret, or miscode a projectwhich then causes disaster when it hits production. The programmer is there to do the work highquality workbut management is there to review, inspect, and take responsibility for it.

Your manager is ultimately responsible for your programming work and the consequences of your work. He needs to be able to coherently and effectively review your comprehensive project turnover material. If he doesnt do it, he should have someone else review your work and sign off on it. You are responsible for providing your manager with comprehensive project turnover material, including test results, and for being willing to review it with him before the project is put into production, not afterwards.