Why do companies do this to themselves?
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Management. The fact that an entire stratification of a business does not contribute to the company's bottom-line in a meaningful way leads to this. They have to validate their existence so they invent a bunch of bs to waste time and make it seem like they're contributing (see: PIPs, Scrum, most meetings, micromanagement*, requests, etc). *: Seriously, how does no one understand that if someone is hovering over you 7 hours of the day, that means THEY aren't doing anything productive?
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Management. The fact that an entire stratification of a business does not contribute to the company's bottom-line in a meaningful way leads to this. They have to validate their existence so they invent a bunch of bs to waste time and make it seem like they're contributing (see: PIPs, Scrum, most meetings, micromanagement*, requests, etc). *: Seriously, how does no one understand that if someone is hovering over you 7 hours of the day, that means THEY aren't doing anything productive?
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Jon McKee wrote:
They have to validate their existence so they invent a bunch of bs to waste time and make it seem like they're contributing
Very good analysis & summary of the situation at many companies.:thumbsup:
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I'm a solo developer in a small company. I wfh and they let me do what I want as long as the plates keep spinning. :laugh: I still get caught up in long, boring conference calls/teams meetings though at least once or twice a week just for torture. If that's not enough, I have a retired, narcissistic, bil who calls every day at 4:20PM out of boredom (he thinks it's funny)...and because he says that I need to take a break. It's like I stop work for the day and put out the sign. 'The Doctor is In' :laugh:
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
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raddevus wrote:
Very good analysis & summary of the situation at many companies all levels of government
FTFY.
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Welcome to retirement, sit back relax and enjoy not having managers and user to pester you! I had exactly the opposite experience with my last (14 year) contract with a bank in Singapore. Senior person was an ex coder who was a workaholic and had prodigious knowledge of the industry. His protégé was a junior support tech when I started and ended up running the department. They were of the opinion that if you did not have 3 projects on the go you were under utilised. Both were brilliant to work for. Mind you some of the meetings would bore the tits off a cow, if there were more that 6 attendees I left as it would be a waste of time.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Those who can, do. (or leave) Those who can't, become managers. Look at Boeing..... more managers than engineers. That's why stuff comes falling out of the sky.
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I once worked for a company who wanted a new website where customer could leave their data and that data would be processed by some third party software. Ultimately, the software would calculate if someone got a loan or not, and the third party software would handle the loan. It wasn't all that complicated. If I had to make an estimate now, I'd say a few months of work, somewhere between €50K and €100K. Project cost millions! :wtf: The entire team of forty people were external (including me) with, of course, quite high hourly rates (at least compared to own employees). But out of those forty people, I'm guessing at least ten were managers! And some of those managers knew each other, some were even from the same company! The project would go a lot smoother when one of those managers was away, but the manager directly above him was also his business associate. We had an overall manager, a manager directly beneath him, two scrum masters whose only job it was to master the scrums (although they weren't in any scrum meetings!), two managers to manage the two scrum teams (incl. the scrum master), one (or two?) release managers, a test manager, a data manager, an architect who fancied himself a manager... Most of those managers came there after me and didn't even take the effort to get to know the teams. You just can't make this stuff up. Anyway, there was some disagreement between some of the managers about who the release manager was. Bob thought he was it, but so did John (not their actual names). Bob was from my company, so we kept in touch, and I don't think I ever spoke to John. But here's the thing... I did the releases on our side and had been doing it for months! And a release for us was clicking a button (in Azure DevOps) for every service that had to be deployed. It was so easy, I sometimes did releases (for example bug fixes) outside the "official release window" because some stuff just isn't all that critical. So one day we had a release planned (with all third parties, etc.), and as a developer I was pretty up to date about the software changes and I simply pushed our changes to production because it didn't really matter that time, we just had to be earlier than some third party. And about an hour later John comes in (for the first time ever) claiming "we can go live NOW!" Now keep in mind, John didn't know me because why would a release manager know the person who does releases (he also didn't know the software or what changed). And I'm like "I already did that." Now John and the
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Age old adage: "as companies approach the size of government, they approach the same efficiency". 2. The problem was diagnosed to be too much bureaucracy, so they assigned a bureaucrat to solve it.
>64 It’s weird being the same age as old people. Live every day like it is your last; one day, it will be.
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I understand what you're going thru -- though I guess few others do, because I've posted similar stories & most people will not discuss this type of thing. I guess they are too shell-shocked from the idiocracy around them, not sure. I worked at a large bank -- hundreds of branches. We had a successive list of VPs of IT. Each one coming in for about 1 year & then leaving. At one point we had a VP of IT who came through the hallways (cubicles) who had heard a rumor that some dev was reading the newspaper during work hours. However, he had one guy's 1st name and another guy's last name put together to create a non-existent person. We had a Frank Fuller & a Joe Johnson (fake names) and he came through the hallways yelling, "Where's Frank Johnson, because I"m going to fire him today." Nothing happened and this VP of IT was gone long before Frank or Joe. Next genius VP of IT came through and his great idea to motivate and inspire was to install signs over the cubicles (into the tile ceiling). The signs each had one word like: Inspired, Encouraged, etc. The one I can never get out of my mind though is the one that said: Boundarylessness :wtf: :wtf: But, it was only months later and the VP of IT was gone but the signs stayed. I guess they were too lazy to take them down again. All during these years there was little actual IT work to do. You might have a 3 month project for the entire year. Of course, everyone reported as "busy". At one point, there was a power struggle between two guys who wanted to manage our little Software Dev group within IT. They fought politically for over a year. During that time I was put on a project that only took 6 weeks and was eventually shelved anyways. And, to top that off, my manager told me: "I was hoping that project would fail." "Why is that", I asked. "Well, we think that group that you worked for is irrelevent and we wanted to prove it by them failing on that project." :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: Uh, I thought we all worked for the same company?!! I've worked in IT for over 33 years now and there have been numerous companies just like that. Most of the Dev time is spent "waiting on the Genius Managers to figure out what they are going to do." One time I was sitting at work, reading yet another tech book online and my coworker I had worked with at the time for over 3 years came over and said, "i'm so bored I'm sitting over there watching family guy videos and going out of my mind. You're reading another tech book aren't you?!!!"
raddevus wrote:
One time I was sitting at work, reading yet another tech book online and my coworker I had worked with at the time for over 3 years came over and said, "i'm so bored I'm sitting over there watching family guy videos and going out of my mind. You're reading another tech book aren't you?!!!"
I was on a 7 month contract for a public utility. I completed the work in 6 weeks. Since I had 5.5 months left on the contract, I asked the client manager for more work. He gave me an assignment each Monday, which I completed sometime between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. I discovered quickly that asking for more work was frowned upon. It was years later before clueless me understood I was making people look bad. This occurred right after VB4 was released, so I spent my free time researching the Windows API, reading the MS New Groups, and creating classes to address common things that were difficult in VB, such as reading/writing INI files. [Those classes worked later in VB5 and VB6, and were used as a model for creating some classes in C#.] I was urged to apply for an internal position (I was a contractor) but I declined, and went on to yet another contract. It was ok to visit there for a short while, but no way I wanted a permanent position.
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charlieg wrote:
You terrify me. :)
I'm not sure why. I am literally telling the stories that occurred while I sat and watched. Nothing more.
charlieg wrote:
This mf turns around and says in a loud voice "if you useless ****s would go away, I'll fix it. Leave me the f*** alone."
I'm really not that way. I would never say such things to boss'. I just recognize all political games and the inconsistencies of bosses. That's it. I know that nothing I say will ever change a company so I don't fight it. When things get bad enoug, I simply vote with my feet & leave the company. You've made me pause to consider if it possible that I come off that way though. I'll add a couple more nuggets about that large bank: 1. They attempted to re-write their entire Loan Origination system. One of the VPs of IT said in a speech when we started, "3 other large banks have all tried this and crashed & burned. We will be the first bank to succeed!" 2. They spent $75 Million over a 3 year period (contractors, contractors, contractors) 3. They finally gave up when branches said they hated it all and they never used a line of code written for the new system. During that time I had a contractor manager. :wtf: I had to go to him to ask questions (reporting chain required) & asked him about a HR thing (insurance, etc) He said, "I don't know what your company does. Why don't you go ask someone who knows that? Im a contractor." That same Contractor manager would report status: "We have so much work we are drowning." On a project of 100 contractors and 3 of us FTE (Full Time) us FTEs all looked at each other bec we were sitting around doing nothing. Contractor manager was bringing on more contractors to do "work". He received $1200 bonus for each tech hire. He brought on 10 contractors in one year. I'll let you do the math. This was on the $75 million project. Try telling this to upper management. "There's a reporting chain, report it to your manager." But I'm the angry one? :rolleyes:
Just tongue in cheek. To Ray's credit, I think he had been asked the same question 4 times in 20 minutes.... he had a temper. One day he was especially intense and grouchy and it was coming across to everyone he was working with.... one male coworker told him, "Ray, you need to get a hooker." The female employees that heard this spit their tea and coffee everywhere. :)
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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raddevus wrote:
One time I was sitting at work, reading yet another tech book online and my coworker I had worked with at the time for over 3 years came over and said, "i'm so bored I'm sitting over there watching family guy videos and going out of my mind. You're reading another tech book aren't you?!!!"
I was on a 7 month contract for a public utility. I completed the work in 6 weeks. Since I had 5.5 months left on the contract, I asked the client manager for more work. He gave me an assignment each Monday, which I completed sometime between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. I discovered quickly that asking for more work was frowned upon. It was years later before clueless me understood I was making people look bad. This occurred right after VB4 was released, so I spent my free time researching the Windows API, reading the MS New Groups, and creating classes to address common things that were difficult in VB, such as reading/writing INI files. [Those classes worked later in VB5 and VB6, and were used as a model for creating some classes in C#.] I was urged to apply for an internal position (I was a contractor) but I declined, and went on to yet another contract. It was ok to visit there for a short while, but no way I wanted a permanent position.
BryanFazekas wrote:
I discovered quickly that asking for more work was frowned upon. It was years later before clueless me understood I was making people look bad.
Yes! So true. Few people will admit this (or maybe even understand it). Managers look bad when you don't have something to do -- and well they should because they are the ones who are supposed to be planning what work is done.
BryanFazekas wrote:
so I spent my free time researching the Windows API, reading the MS New Groups, and creating classes to address common things that were difficult in VB, such as reading/writing INI files
That's what I've always done. Just learn, grow, etc. Get ready for the next thing. :-D Back in 1999 I was working a QA job, but there was a long lull in work. I decided to learn JavaScript. This was back in the days of HTML Frames. My skip-level manager came to me and was commiserating about the web product that had an intermittent bug. Sometimes the JavaScript would run right and other times it would fail for some reason. I told him I was learning JS & I'd look at it to see. Because I had been learning I noticed the Dev was loading JS scripts to do things in certain frames at certain times. However, I'd just read that you cannot depend upon the order of frames loading. THis was the cause of the intermittent bug. I told my manager and he was ecstatic -- I was QA getting paid 1/4 what the dev was and I found the dev's issue. All bec I was "wasting time learning JS". :rolleyes:
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I see that in operation every day in software development. The primary cause comes from the trend where non-technical managers have decision-making power over the technical (development) team. They took QA out from under the development manager, so now a QA manager has authority to dictate to development how to manage the SDLC, even though QA rarely has the knowledge, skills, and abilities that software engineers do. Then, non-technical CxOs decided that the one(s) in charge of software engineering decisions (e.g. CTO, VP Software Development, etc.) did not need to have the depth of knowledge, skills, and abilities that the senior software engineers do. The end result is having non-technical people making poor and uninformed technology decisions based primarily on management techniques suited for manufacturing production lines. Hence, since meetings can be useful tools for non-technical business operations, they wrongly think they are productive for IT and software engineering. Lots of meetings (including daily standups) create great inefficiencies and lower productivity and quality. The intellectual rigor needed in software engineering and IT in general is easily derailed by too many meetings interrupting the day. I have seen the decline in code quality in several companies over the years from this non-technical business management approach. The decision making roles, that directly interface with the business end (sales, marketing, etc) of a company need to be currently proficient senior software engineers with a solid business understanding and the ability to translate “geek speak” into the language of business, so that non-technical business types can understand. The business side of a company should limit their involvement to defining requirements in a timely manner and leave the technology decisions (and costs within a budget) to those who fully understand the technology across the entire life cycle.
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I see that in operation every day in software development. The primary cause comes from the trend where non-technical managers have decision-making power over the technical (development) team. They took QA out from under the development manager, so now a QA manager has authority to dictate to development how to manage the SDLC, even though QA rarely has the knowledge, skills, and abilities that software engineers do. Then, non-technical CxOs decided that the one(s) in charge of software engineering decisions (e.g. CTO, VP Software Development, etc.) did not need to have the depth of knowledge, skills, and abilities that the senior software engineers do. The end result is having non-technical people making poor and uninformed technology decisions based primarily on management techniques suited for manufacturing production lines. Hence, since meetings can be useful tools for non-technical business operations, they wrongly think they are productive for IT and software engineering. Lots of meetings (including daily standups) create great inefficiencies and lower productivity and quality. The intellectual rigor needed in software engineering and IT in general is easily derailed by too many meetings interrupting the day. I have seen the decline in code quality in several companies over the years from this non-technical business management approach. The decision making roles, that directly interface with the business end (sales, marketing, etc) of a company need to be currently proficient senior software engineers with a solid business understanding and the ability to translate “geek speak” into the language of business, so that non-technical business types can understand. The business side of a company should limit their involvement to defining requirements in a timely manner and leave the technology decisions (and costs within a budget) to those who fully understand the technology across the entire life cycle.
Interesting analysis and it fits with what is going on inside said corporations. Tasks that should be trivial go on and on and on. The good news is that the engineering "supervisor" is very technically adept and does a good job of shielding the developers from excessive meetings.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I have never worked with a team of developers.But as a young just graduated Pharmacist I worked for a family owned company that went mega corporate. 12 local pharmacies to multiple states with over 300 pharmacies. Before I went to pharmacy school I mowed Eddie Schuman's lawn Eddie had a daughter who married Sheldon (Bud) Fantle. I also mowed Bud's lawn. Bud was the president of the empire. When we went from a Royal Typewriter to computer I was in my element and learned how to break in to the system software. I taught the computer to write my order it had a counter that every time you sold 100 tablets of a medication it increased the counter and would print a report on how many to buy. No one even the IT guy knew about this function. How did I learn most of this I call Honeywell who wrote the software. I was dam lucky I got 2 guys who were very helpful and friendly. Because my pharmacy was in a highly competitive area 5 pharmacies within a 7 mile area I decided to create my own prices. I took that store from 150 prescriptions a day to 450 prescription a day. This caught local managements eye. I knew not to spill the beans or I would be GONE. But one day I showed the IT guy who I was friends with how I wrote the order. He passed this information on to Bud. Then one day I started working and all the prescription prices were increased by 35% or more depending on the volume of he medication. WHAT the Heck was going on ? ? Check the price file and all my lower prices were replaced we are talking days of work. YEP I called BUD and went off about the prices. He said I understand you have your own price scale in the computer BUSTED Then he said calm down. I have one question why has no one else called me about this? I said they know but are too afraid to complain. A few hours later Bud called back and said his son who was part of the company was messing with the computer and had made a mistake. During this few hours my local manager called and said "I don't believe it you called Bud" I was offered a better store which was not doing a large enough volume but Mr. Hoover (the Sweeper guy) was a customer nice fellow. I moved on to Grand Canyon yes I lived inside the park. Installed a computer in the little pharmacy. HOW Called the guys from Honeywell and bought a used desktop system and printer for $500.00 When I got the store at GC we did 30 prescriptions a day took it to 200 a day by treating the people in the community like what Bud Fantle & Mr. Hoover had taught me. That's my Story and I am sticking to IT
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What the he$$ is it with companies and management deciding that MORE meetings mean better productivity? Over the past couple of years (with the new CEO of the corp I no longer support), there has been a deliberate push to put as much as possible at the company headquarters. They rationalize this with improving efficiency but never look at the metrics. Corporate IT is trying to get it's act together, but it's f'ing hopeless. I asked for a simple Windows Server VM. Request went no where. Inquiring into my request, a WEEK'S worth of research was done, and my request was closed. Apparently, cloning a virtual machine (which is ctlC/V operation) is a project not a request. So, I created a project. A week passes... nothing. I inquire. Oh, we need to have a meeting. "Really, why?" "We need to discuss your requirements." "It's in the project. Clone the existing VM and move it into the new environment." "Why do you want to do that?" "You really would not understand..." At this point, I bailed out of the conversation. 3 meetings and 6 months later I have a virtual machine. :doh: So, part of my exit strategy is pulling my development stuff into virtual machines. It's a bit of work, I think I'm there, but the VMs represent about .5TB of files. No way I can move that over VPN, so I go into the office... And the file server is full. Got to love corporate IT and their lack of monitoring. So, I open a support ticket. "Please increase the size of the VIRTUAL SoftwareDevelopment folder by 2TB." Crickets. Then the ticket was assigned.. then it was escalated. I'm sure IT will want to have a meeting, but my credentials expired at 11:59pm yesterday, so I no longer have access. :) happy days Corporate IT spent 10s of millions of dollars on a new more flexible approach such that they never get anything done.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
In my experience in over fifty years, I have observed that the type of person who earns a BBA or an MBA and aims to rise into corporate management often becomes a problem rather than becoming an asset. Many have either an ego problem or a hubris problem or both. The Business Administration coursework leans heavily on case studies and simple-case problems. They usually start in sales, marketing, or finance. They have little-to-no practical experience in the complexity of running a real enterprise. Their best skill is selling themselves to human resources and middle management -- employees who are desperate for someone to fix the mess left behind by the last idiot they hired and who just left to screw up another company. They think they know what they are doing, but in reality, they are starting way out of their depth.
A few of these BBA and MBA idiots will survive and even thrive, but most will move on to another company, leaving a significant amount of damage to the company they are leaving.
Why does upper management allow this to happen? Because upper management consists of those that thrived and learned. Often, they have the eternal optomism of a salesman or a marketeer.
__________________ Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now. © 2009, Rex Hammock
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I understand what you're going thru -- though I guess few others do, because I've posted similar stories & most people will not discuss this type of thing. I guess they are too shell-shocked from the idiocracy around them, not sure. I worked at a large bank -- hundreds of branches. We had a successive list of VPs of IT. Each one coming in for about 1 year & then leaving. At one point we had a VP of IT who came through the hallways (cubicles) who had heard a rumor that some dev was reading the newspaper during work hours. However, he had one guy's 1st name and another guy's last name put together to create a non-existent person. We had a Frank Fuller & a Joe Johnson (fake names) and he came through the hallways yelling, "Where's Frank Johnson, because I"m going to fire him today." Nothing happened and this VP of IT was gone long before Frank or Joe. Next genius VP of IT came through and his great idea to motivate and inspire was to install signs over the cubicles (into the tile ceiling). The signs each had one word like: Inspired, Encouraged, etc. The one I can never get out of my mind though is the one that said: Boundarylessness :wtf: :wtf: But, it was only months later and the VP of IT was gone but the signs stayed. I guess they were too lazy to take them down again. All during these years there was little actual IT work to do. You might have a 3 month project for the entire year. Of course, everyone reported as "busy". At one point, there was a power struggle between two guys who wanted to manage our little Software Dev group within IT. They fought politically for over a year. During that time I was put on a project that only took 6 weeks and was eventually shelved anyways. And, to top that off, my manager told me: "I was hoping that project would fail." "Why is that", I asked. "Well, we think that group that you worked for is irrelevent and we wanted to prove it by them failing on that project." :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: Uh, I thought we all worked for the same company?!! I've worked in IT for over 33 years now and there have been numerous companies just like that. Most of the Dev time is spent "waiting on the Genius Managers to figure out what they are going to do." One time I was sitting at work, reading yet another tech book online and my coworker I had worked with at the time for over 3 years came over and said, "i'm so bored I'm sitting over there watching family guy videos and going out of my mind. You're reading another tech book aren't you?!!!"
This right here. And adding to Charlie's original note, there's people who think their entire job is to have meetings and never actually accomplish anything.
raddevus wrote:
In reality, most companies are so frightfully mis-managed by the dumbest of people, who just yammer away about nothing and are completely ineffectual. However, they are quite good at lying to the bosses just above them (playing the role of sycophant). And so it goes on.
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I have never worked with a team of developers.But as a young just graduated Pharmacist I worked for a family owned company that went mega corporate. 12 local pharmacies to multiple states with over 300 pharmacies. Before I went to pharmacy school I mowed Eddie Schuman's lawn Eddie had a daughter who married Sheldon (Bud) Fantle. I also mowed Bud's lawn. Bud was the president of the empire. When we went from a Royal Typewriter to computer I was in my element and learned how to break in to the system software. I taught the computer to write my order it had a counter that every time you sold 100 tablets of a medication it increased the counter and would print a report on how many to buy. No one even the IT guy knew about this function. How did I learn most of this I call Honeywell who wrote the software. I was dam lucky I got 2 guys who were very helpful and friendly. Because my pharmacy was in a highly competitive area 5 pharmacies within a 7 mile area I decided to create my own prices. I took that store from 150 prescriptions a day to 450 prescription a day. This caught local managements eye. I knew not to spill the beans or I would be GONE. But one day I showed the IT guy who I was friends with how I wrote the order. He passed this information on to Bud. Then one day I started working and all the prescription prices were increased by 35% or more depending on the volume of he medication. WHAT the Heck was going on ? ? Check the price file and all my lower prices were replaced we are talking days of work. YEP I called BUD and went off about the prices. He said I understand you have your own price scale in the computer BUSTED Then he said calm down. I have one question why has no one else called me about this? I said they know but are too afraid to complain. A few hours later Bud called back and said his son who was part of the company was messing with the computer and had made a mistake. During this few hours my local manager called and said "I don't believe it you called Bud" I was offered a better store which was not doing a large enough volume but Mr. Hoover (the Sweeper guy) was a customer nice fellow. I moved on to Grand Canyon yes I lived inside the park. Installed a computer in the little pharmacy. HOW Called the guys from Honeywell and bought a used desktop system and printer for $500.00 When I got the store at GC we did 30 prescriptions a day took it to 200 a day by treating the people in the community like what Bud Fantle & Mr. Hoover had taught me. That's my Story and I am sticking to IT
