Technical term for a brain dead management technique?

[Spacecadet]

So NWHS then. Read it carefully.

I did

ineffectiveness is the oppostite of effectiveness. measure one and you have the other.
I just asumed that RH was a glass half empty kinda guy

[Bunk]

I think you are witnessing a soulless variant on the "Daily Scrum", part of the Scrum method.

Ah, too slow

But yep, WHS.

[alreadypacked]

The next step is hourly updates with a PM updating an MS Project plan as you speak.

The step after that is 200 Indian programmers arrive and supplement the team.

The step after that is the project is canned.

DP I didn't realise you were on one of my projects

[cojak]

Anyone know the name of, and have a link to, this management technique:

You have a group of programmers and you have a short meeting every day, usually about half way through the morning. You go around the table and get each one to describe what they've done yesterday and what they're going to do today.

Seems to be beloved of naive project managers. So either it must be in some beginners manual, or maybe it's just something gel haired freaks commonly dream up when a project is spiralling out of control.

Just wait till you get to Six Sigma and "Process Excellence" - usually involving companies who spend their waking moments avoiding anything that might be remote described as a process...

Then you'll have a larf...

[cojak]

I did

ineffectiveness is the oppostite of effectiveness. measure one and you have the other.
I just asumed that RH was a glass half empty kinda guy

RH generally hits the bar way before his pint is half empty!

Proactive is our RH...

[original PM]

Does micromanagment of this nature actually work?

surely if you have decent profesional people then you do not need to check they actual did any work yesterday and then check they are going to do some work today??

And in fact the very act of checking and re-checking is more demotivating than laying a cable in their morning cuppa?

I could be wrong but......

[threaded]

That sounds like Scrum. I've seen quite a few places using that now, although most tend to only use parts of it, in particular the daily scrum-type meeting.

I see, "The Daily Standup". This maybe a modification to it then, as the couple or three managers go around the table and berate each programmers in a bad cop, worse cop, downright nasty cop kinda way, the programmers are made to feel bad, female staff made to cry etc. then each programmer is coerced into agreeing to perform some unreasonable task before the next meeting.

[Spacecadet]

Does micromanagment of this nature actually work?

surely if you have decent profesional people then you do not need to check they actual did any work yesterday and then check they are going to do some work today??

And in fact the very act of checking and re-checking is more demotivating than laying a cable in their morning cuppa?

I could be wrong but......

Used properly the morning round table catchup can actually be more motivating.
Issues you've raised the day before, if not fixed can be escalated if necessary.
Issues which have been dealt with are closed off.

It gives people a chance to "show off" what they have accomplished.


Used badly it's just a forum for public humiliation.

[minestrone]

Yes, that is the scrum or the daily huddle, we even get to stand round a big whiteboard or "information radiator" as it is called here and talk forever about how to correctly change the burndown chart.

Pretty pointless really, if I am on a 5 day task is there really any point in me wasting 20 minutes each day saying. "yup still on target, no blockers" if I don't think I will make the estimate or something is stopping me I will tell the PM so really I think it is a waste of time.

I worked in a great place about 5 years ago who never got the idea of a quick update, I would get in about 9.30 and would not start anything as the meeting was at 10:00, it lasted nearly 2 hours with 15 people and then I would just browse the web for a bit cos it was nearly lunch time. In the end they got about 3 i/2 hours work out of me a day.

[Scary]

Is that the one where half of you are pigs and half of you are chickens and you make barnyard noises?