Right, so “Hamilton Smith.” Just thinking about that name makes me sigh a little. It wasn’t a person, not really, but more like this… system, or a set of procedures, that got dropped on us at an old job. And boy, did I get some hands-on practice with it.
My First Brush with the “Hamilton Smith” Way
It all started when the higher-ups decided we needed to be more “efficient” or “standardized” or some other buzzword they’d picked up at a seminar. So, they rolled out this whole “Hamilton Smith” framework. Suddenly, stuff that used to be simple became a whole production. I remember looking at the introductory documents and thinking, “This is going to be… something.”
My team was tasked with a pretty basic update to an internal tool. Normally, a quick job. A few days, tops. But no, we had to do it the “Hamilton Smith” way. That’s where my real practice began.
First, I had to initiate the project using the new “Hamilton Smith Project Portal.” This involved filling out about five different online forms. I swear, one form asked for the same information three times, just phrased differently. I spent a good morning just wrestling with that portal, trying to figure out which dropdown meant what.
Then came the “Hamilton Smith Requirement Gathering Protocol.” We couldn’t just talk to the users. Oh no. I had to:
- Draft a “Stakeholder Identification Matrix (Hamilton Smith Template A).”
- Schedule “Formalized Input Sessions (as per Hamilton Smith Guideline 3.2b).”
- Document every single word in the “Hamilton Smith Approved Minutes Format.”
I remember sitting in one of those “Formalized Input Sessions,” which was really just a regular meeting but with more paperwork, and thinking about all the actual work I could be doing instead. I tried to keep things moving, but every step had to be logged into the Hamilton Smith system.
Deep in the Hamilton Smith Trenches
Once we actually got to the development part, it didn’t get any simpler. I had to break down every tiny task into “Hamilton Smith Work Units.” Each unit then needed an estimate, also logged, of course. If I spent more than an hour on something, I had to provide a “Hamilton Smith Deviation Report.”
We had daily “Hamilton Smith Stand-ups,” which weren’t your quick agile stand-ups. No, these involved each of us reciting our progress against our logged Work Units, and if there was any change, well, you guessed it, more forms. I got pretty good at filling out those forms, I’ll give myself that. Lots of practice.
There was this one time I fixed a bug. A small thing, took me maybe 20 minutes. But then I spent nearly an hour navigating the Hamilton Smith system to document the fix, link it to the original Work Unit, and then submit it for “Hamilton Smith Post-Implementation Review.” It was maddening.
What Came of All That Practice?
So, what was the result of all this rigorous “Hamilton Smith” practice? The project got done. Eventually. Weeks later than it would have taken us before. And honestly, the end product wasn’t magically better. It was just… more documented. We had folders full of Hamilton Smith forms, charts, and reports. Impressive to look at, I guess, if you like looking at paperwork.
My biggest takeaway from the whole Hamilton Smith saga? Sometimes, just doing the work is better than spending all your time documenting the work. All that practice with their system just made me appreciate simpler ways of getting things done. It felt like we were practicing bureaucracy more than our actual crafts. But hey, at least I can say I’ve been through the Hamilton Smith wringer, right?
