Letting people have your way

Yes, my worst fears were confirmed yesterday. All that talk about "improving process" and new functional specs was indicative of the project management gestapo trying to reassert their "control" over product development. They scheduled a meeting on my out-of-office day (not on purpose) so the bulk of the people who are actually running the project and are already informed and communicating could sit around a table for an hour while they bloviated about change request forms and control process.

What I wanted to say was "Look, you inept fucktards, just because you finally finished making that other project take twice as long to complete as it should have doesn't mean you need to impose your Change Request Tyranny on us." Obviously that wouldn't go over too well, so I refrained.

The reality is they're about five months late to the party.
News Flash: We already shipped the product. The film is in the can.

So anyway, they want to start having weekly status meetings. Why? Because they consider themselves too busy/important to attend the sprint planning meetings and demos. While I refrained from telling them what I really thought of that idea, I did make clear that I would not be participating. Not exactly the most effective tack, tho.

My grandfather had a great saying about how to be successful. He used to say you need to "Let people have your way." Much later in life I actually get it. Now I need to back off and play the game where I show them how what we're doing actually is exactly what they are asking for and try to make them think they came up with the idea. God how tedious. The next time I re-engineer an organization's development group I'm going to ask for a whole lot more money. This stuff is too exhausting.