Comminication Breakdown

Friday afternoon at 4pm (when I'm at lowest of my brainiac powers), my tech lead phones me.

Him: Um, um, um. I've got a bunch of things to discuss with you, but, um... right now, um, I've only got time for one of them.

Me: {sigh} Ok, let's have the one.

Him: Well, he, no... actually.. I'll discuss two things.

Me: Alright.

Him: ok, first... I spoke to Joe this morning who had a a day off today...while he was driving... to another state... to see his family.

Me: {sweet jesus! he doesn't have time for more than 1 topic, but he has time to tell me all that detail?} And??

Him: he needs to circle back with you on a few things in order to close these issues?

Me: so the update is you spoke to Joe in his car and the issue is not really resolved. Ok, what is #2?

Him: Ok, I've got to run a scenario by you. If you take ARCKY and then create a FARCKY and then someone edits the FIARKY..

Me: WO! What are you talking about? Are you speaking in Pig Latin?

Him: oh {tee hee hee}, me and the developers came up with our own acronyms for some things. We've had quite a good time of it!

Me: Whatever gets you through the day. However, since I don't know your acronyms I can't follow your you.

Him: ok, well the acronyms are... {he then blurts out about 8 different acronyms all of which sound very similar}.

Me: {is this guy serious?}

Him: so If you take ARCKY and then create a FARCKY and then someone edits the FIARKY..

Me: {OMG. Someone shoot me now. It's 4pm on Friday!}

Him: {animated}... so you can see, this is a whole new way of building the functionality which I think will be a big improvement!

Me: {if I hung up, could I say we got disconnected and not have him figure it out? Is he seriously proposing a brand new technical design - of something we've been discussing for 4 months - on a Friday at 4pm? And really expecting an answer? Is he realy presenting a brand new design on Friday at 4pm and thinking he is going to get approval to change things at this point? Is this person insane? Then I realize this is a person who thinks it's normal to begin a conversation with: I have a number of things to talk to you about, but right now I only have time for 1. Just start off with the 1! }

I think we need to think about it, is all I could muster in response. I'm too tired for this crap.

Play the Game

The higher you move up the office hierarchy, the more savvy you must become in the office politics game. In my office, many keep their negative opinions of others to themselves so as not to be crushed. However, when it comes to groups that are systemically not performing, which in turn hinders the success of the company as a whole, I think appropriate to throw a few barbs... ok, a few helpful hints.

One cultural flaw in my office (and believe me, it's not the only one) is that the project managment group takes no ownership of the projects. They set up meetings, sometimes they take notes (and send them out - but then they expect kudos), they send out a weekly status report. However, they don't seem to think it necessary for them to actually understand what the project is about, or keep on top of whether various project participants are completing their tasks on time, or if someone stumbles across a road block and needs help, the project manager is not the person you would go to. They would most likely stare at you blankly, as if to say: are you implying I should do something about that? Recently, one PM began a meeting with higher ups about her project with: I'm not the business expert here, but I think the project is about X. Um, NO. As a project manager you should at least be able to explain, at a high level, what the project is and why the company is investing resources working on it.

I understand how the project management group evolved into this behavior. Their leader is sort of weak. Our projects seem to always veer wildly off course. I say: in no small part because they have no management, but.. also it's because of the behavior of everyone else on the projects. And if project management was actually managing the projects, they would have to lay accountability for where projects go off the rails on something or someone. See, the head of project management can't do that, because he'd get in trouble and it wouldn't look good for him. Nice, right?

So where is the game. I've been known to say (as have some others), that if our project managers were more evolved than administrative assistants and if people were held accountable for their work, our projects would go much smoother. This opinion does not go over well in the office. Recently, a former co-worker contacted me to say she was looking for a project management job. I told her my opinions of the project management group at my company, but that perhaps if someone strong arrived and led by example, things could change. I'm not really optimistic about this, but I want to help this person in their search. If he decides to work here, he'll be aware of the situation prior to accepting a position. Yesterday I ran into the head of project management and told him I may have a candidate for his open position. The reply was: and you'll put your name to it? At that point I knew that no one I recommend will have a chance. See, my rumblings about his staff haven't made him very happy. The sad thing is, I'm not displeased about these events. I do worry that someone who was used to really managing projects would be extremely unhappy in our environment. In these turn of events, I've appeared to be helpful to my old colleague, but don't have to worry I've put him in a miserable situation.

Somehow I still don't feel good about the game, though.

The Importance of Morale at Work

Around this time a few years ago, I was working on a very large project, for which my employer had engaged a consulting company to provide about a third of the development resources. The project had been deemed essential to my employers future strategy and worthy of the time and resources invested. The project ran long, as they tend to do when many, many people have been charged with working on an initiative. One day the higher ups looked at the project, exclaimed: the project is costing a million dollars a month! We're hemoraging. The consultants must go! Subsequently, an email came out announcing this decision and that a 2 week stay of execution would be allowed to provide "enough" time for knowledge transfer from the consultants to the staff on their assigned tasks. My first thought was: well this sucks. My second thought was: naturally the release date won't change.

And I was correct: it did suck and the date did not move. There seemed to be no acknowledgement that removing a third of the resources might impact the timeframe. As usual, the bottom line had won out without a true analysis of the cost. Yes, the million dollars a month was reduced, but the to lecture us on the importance of the project and it's ability to improve our revenue, thus making the date was imperitive... really? The project is SO important to you that you cut the resources? The project is SO important to you that you don't care how badly you have impacted the morale of your staff. Not only did you disrupt their relationships with people, some of whom we had been working with for almost two years, you then added insult to injury by increasing our work when we took over their tasks. The situation resembled when companies have large layoffs, but at least in that case there is an acknowledgement of loss and that people may be upset. Here the attitude was: they were consultants, not permanent employees. You should not feel badly about them. Nor should we have felt badly for ourselves, working new and increasingly insane hours to achieve the impossible: completing the project on time. Management viewed our extra labor as free, because after all, as exempt employees it was! The next announcement corporate wide was that in order to keep the company costs down, there would be no raises that year. We should work hard to make the date, so the company can make more revenue (and greater profit due to lowered expenses), and yet, we will not gain from our labor.

Tell me, what is our motivation? Higher ups may say: pride in a job well done. But I somehow doubt they weren't getting raises, that their bonus pool was reduced in any way. Are you surprised that the project dragged on and on because the morale of the team plummeted? Would you be shocked to discover because of these delays the total cost of the project was higher than if the consultants had been kept?

Lessons to management:
1. The short cut way does not always take you down the shortest path
2. The measly staff level people know can smell your hypocrisy a mile away
3. The morale of the people who do the work matters