February 17, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Value of Your Time
February 17, 2009 at 10:42 pm
... and if you can't trust them, you probably hired the wrong person and should spend more time on personnel evals and the firing process than approving travel for someone that you do trust.
Nice article, Steve. I went through this with my previous company... they actually wanted me and some of the Developers to start taking help desk calls even though we were on all night death marches because of some really bad scheduling and man-power planning. Great use of company resources...
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
February 18, 2009 at 12:55 am
Coincidentally we had something similar yesterday - we have a desk re-arrange and move planned to make space for works and the debate on when to do it ended up as "Which is more costly to the company, ten developers for half a day in the week or two handymen on a Saturday morning?"
The result was that most developers and their desks will stay where they are, as the actual gain was found to be four inches 🙂
February 18, 2009 at 4:43 am
...taling of getting the person with the right skills doing appropriate tasks, I really thing that someone with a better grasp of the grammar of the English language should be writing these front page articles. There are simply too may errors!
February 18, 2009 at 4:54 am
This ties nicely back to the Trust editorial.
That said, back in the late 90s I went for an interview with a small privately held children's products company. I toured the facility, I interviewed with their resident expert. I answered their weed questions. I finished their "test" before the guy could walk away. Everything seemed to go swimmingly. I was offered the job.
Before I "got into computers", my first career path was law enforcement. As I toured the location I became aware of the elaborate surveillance system. The desks were old, circa 1950-60's desks, all arranged in a rigid grid pattern. Above each desk was a small quasi-covert camera. All of these cameras fed into a bank of monitors that were at the desks of the husband and wife CEOs. The CEOs had their desks at either end of the glass walled conference room, which was dead center in this space. The CEOs also had their phone system set up so they could eavesdrop on any phone call.
I told them flatly that I understood their paranoia, but that I couldn't work in such an environment.
Last time I checked, they're still in business, but they haven't grown as a company.
Honor Super Omnia-
Jason Miller
February 18, 2009 at 4:55 am
nicholas.catley (2/18/2009)
...taling of getting the person with the right skills doing appropriate tasks, I really thing that someone with a better grasp of the grammar of the English language should be writing these front page articles. There are simply too may errors!
I sincerely hope this was satire.
Honor Super Omnia-
Jason Miller
February 18, 2009 at 4:57 am
I'm afraid that it wasn't!
February 18, 2009 at 5:01 am
nicholas.catley (2/18/2009)
I'm afraid that it wasn't!
It's usually a good idea when criticising someone else's spelling or grammar to ensure that you make no such mistakes in your criticism. 😉
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
February 18, 2009 at 5:32 am
thanks...:D But you kind of miss my point. The article was about people with appropriate skills doing appropriate tasks. As a person commenting on a forum, adequate comprehensibility is quite sufficient.
When submitting an article to a wide readserhip, a high standard is appropriate.
No offense meant or taken!
February 18, 2009 at 5:39 am
I don't disagree about it not being the best use of the CEO's time. It's natural to want to keep an on expenses, because no one will care as much about cash flow as you do - but that's why you create budgets, to give them fences and freedom within those fences. Delegating - all I can say is that it's one of those words that is easy to say, not say easy to do!
And I don't really disagree about doing the stuff that is appropriate to your ability/salary, but too often I see that turn into dogma that hurts the company/team. For example, years ago we were setting up a satellite office and we needed everyone from IT to contribute to the effort - essentially do manual labor. Why? They had enough technical expertise to set up the machines, run the cables, etc. We paid movers to do the lifting, but IT unboxed and plugged and tested. Is that the best use of a programmers time? You can easily argue that it's not, but they were a sunk cost (and sometimes that's a big deciding factor) and it gave them some ownership in the project, which is intangible but valuable.
Balance is the key.
February 18, 2009 at 6:05 am
This all sounds VERY suspicious...
"There was a mismatch of expectations in the presentation of a new product..."
"The CEO of a 3,000+ person company had to approve a $1,500-2,000 trip for a sale worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue."
The way you are presenting this Steve, sounds very slanted. It sounds to me like your friend the sales person either "oversold" or flat out made promises that are false. That's a very good term; "mismatch of expectations", (and to come up with it you might have a great future in Washington DC where there have been a few recent mismatches of expectations) - but if, as you say this is a sale worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue, how did your friend manage to create a "mismatch of expectations"? With that kind of money at stake, surely a bit more caution and clarity should be in order.
None the less, suppose this 3,000+ person company is sitting on the verge of bankruptcy? Would you then argue the CEO should not be concerning himself with this seemingly minor expense? If I were the CEO, I would not only be a little concerned about the expense but WHY the expense is required AT ALL!!! Sounds like it is required because your friend basically "screwed up".
Sure, trust your people to do their jobs - but if you have a person who develops a "mismatch of expectations" where tens of millions of dollars are at stake, you'd better put this guy under the microscope - because its not the ten minutes the CEO will spend to unravel what happened there that matters - its a sales guy who clearly is not doing his job as he should. And whether its a company with 3, 300 or 3,000 - you'd better get that fixed soon.
In other words, yeah, a $2,000 expense is minor - but a mismatch of expectations with a huge valuable client IS A MAJOR CRISIS that indeed requires some CEO attention!
February 18, 2009 at 6:31 am
blandry (2/18/2009)
This all sounds VERY suspicious..."There was a mismatch of expectations in the presentation of a new product..."
"The CEO of a 3,000+ person company had to approve a $1,500-2,000 trip for a sale worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue."
The way you are presenting this Steve, sounds very slanted. It sounds to me like your friend the sales person either "oversold" or flat out made promises that are false. That's a very good term; "mismatch of expectations", (and to come up with it you might have a great future in Washington DC where there have been a few recent mismatches of expectations) - but if, as you say this is a sale worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue, how did your friend manage to create a "mismatch of expectations"? With that kind of money at stake, surely a bit more caution and clarity should be in order.
None the less, suppose this 3,000+ person company is sitting on the verge of bankruptcy? Would you then argue the CEO should not be concerning himself with this seemingly minor expense? If I were the CEO, I would not only be a little concerned about the expense but WHY the expense is required AT ALL!!! Sounds like it is required because your friend basically "screwed up".
Sure, trust your people to do their jobs - but if you have a person who develops a "mismatch of expectations" where tens of millions of dollars are at stake, you'd better put this guy under the microscope - because its not the ten minutes the CEO will spend to unravel what happened there that matters - its a sales guy who clearly is not doing his job as he should. And whether its a company with 3, 300 or 3,000 - you'd better get that fixed soon.
In other words, yeah, a $2,000 expense is minor - but a mismatch of expectations with a huge valuable client IS A MAJOR CRISIS that indeed requires some CEO attention!
But as Andy pointed out, balance is key. If you give your employees the impression that you trust them to do nothing, and they have no authority for any decisions, then how hard are they really going to work? How much ownership will they take? Can they take?
And if the company is in dire straits, such that the CEO needs to sign off on every expense, then a sale of this magnitude should be a no-brainer, and someone should have got the CEO's attention sooner.
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"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
February 18, 2009 at 6:45 am
So, is this about expectations of clients or about what work is appropriate for a pay grade?
Our industry is notorious for mismatched expectations. Whether it's with a vendor, a client, or a user, expectations and commitments must be communicated and understood by all parties. Maybe that didn't happen in this case.
Maybe the CEO is a control freak and that's why the need to approve all travel. Or, maybe some employees have screwed the company on travel and he wants a hand in it to stop it. Or, maybe the CEO wants to talk to the friend to see why the mismatch occurred in the first place.
I don't know that I'd be too hard on language and grammar in the editorials. After all, we ARE I.T. people. 😉
February 18, 2009 at 6:50 am
I'm a great example of misuse of resources. I'm supposed to be a database developer and reporting expert. I spend most of my time doing desktop support and trying to teach totally inept people how to use computers! Whenever I propose a new database project that would improve one of our processes, I get shot down. If the current process works (albeit totally inefficiently), why on earth would we want to put time into improving it?!? It's more important that I go explain to someone for the 1000th how to log on to our intranet.
February 18, 2009 at 6:55 am
JenG (2/18/2009)
I'm a great example of misuse of resources. I'm supposed to be a database developer and reporting expert. I spend most of my time doing desktop support and trying to teach totally inept people how to use computers! Whenever I propose a new database project that would improve one of our processes, I get shot down. If the current process works (albeit totally inefficiently), why on earth would we want to put time into improving it?!? It's more important that I go explain to someone for the 1000th how to log on to our intranet.
At least you're not bitter. By the way, email system's down, I sent you an email.
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How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
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