[wonkaWonka]

No way. Fuck that.

I have quit jobs over their idiotic daily meeting rituals. Continuous evaluation does nothing for team performance.

Firing people hurts morale. Hiring people who suck hurts morale.

Making people who suck, suck in public on a daily basis hurts morale.

Forcing people who actually get shit done, to mire themselves in tedium and busy work, and engage garish displays of self-appraisal, not only interrupts actual work, distracting from things that count, but provides for a constant atmosphere of interrogation.

Playing the daily meeting, and weekly status game is shit. I won't do it. Never again. Not for any amount of money.

Know what you want before you assign it to me. I'll get it done. Don't ask me are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? You child. Grow some patience. The car ride is over when I park the car.

[wyager]

While I probably wouldn't use such strong words, I absolutely agree. The daily standup/frequent performance review has disastrous effects on productivity with no discernible benefit. It appears to be something that management can do to cheaply create an illusion of managerial productivity.

[wonkaWonka]

Sometimes certain realities are often white-washed by the cordial etiquette that "The Crown's High Court" might demand of those dwelling in the workplace.

I'm not directing this sort of statement at any actual person, but if someone is asking me for advice and personal opinion, I'd always prefer to tell it like it is.

[bitJericho]

If you're not willing to use strong language, then you might be part of the problem.

[ivraatiems]

Good communicators don't need to swear or yell to make points.

[bitJericho]

The best ones do.

[st3v3r]

Nope. The best ones recognize their audience, and are perfectly capable of making the same point with or without childish swearing.

[xanthor]

You're a fucking idiot.

[bitJericho]

Fuck you pal!

[iamleppert]

Thank you!! You described perfectly why these systems do not work and are often the symptoms of either a banal corporate culture or some place that's full of median level people anyway.

I can't stand the constant inquisition of these systems. It makes it seem like the focus is on the dance of "doing work" and not the actual work product at all.

[delazeur]

Is it possible to build a megacorporation without falling into this management pattern? It clearly hurts top performers, but if you have more than a couple hundred employees it seems inevitable that a significant percentage of the staff is going to have to be shepherded and monitored through their work.

[enraged_camel]

>>Is it possible to build a megacorporation without falling into this management pattern?

I don't believe so. Micromanagement is the result of two things: lack of actual management skill and lack of trust in employees.

These become more and more common as organizations grow in size, because:

a)Bad managers become more likely to play politics or slip through the cracks and get promoted, and

b) inefficiencies (correlated with firm size) and the resulting decline in output tend to be attributed to employees not working, or not working hard enough - which breeds mistrust.

[igf]

There's no good solution to running a large organisation. Instead of complaining that large organisations are badly run, we should instead marvel that they run at all.

[lmm]

> Firing people hurts morale. Hiring people who suck hurts morale.

Then what's to be done? Unless you've figured out how to hire only good people?

> Making people who suck, suck in public on a daily basis hurts morale.

Really? I feel a lot more resentful if someone's doing a terrible job and no-one seems to notice.

> Know what you want before you assign it to me. I'll get it done.

So you can estimate perfectly? Or when it becomes cleare something is going to take twice as long as originally thought, you have all the knowledge of the business to decide what action to take?

[wonkaWonka]

You can usually tell when people suck by the end of 30 days, through simple conversation, and not formal rituals. Certainly by 90 days. Unless, of course, you're the one that sucks.

When you find good people, certainly don't bog them down with the albatross of making them do the things that terrible people waste time on.

If you know terrible people are wasting time (and you will) and you know it's not fun to watch, why make a public display of it?

Management can suck as much as subordinates. Terrible people cut across all levels of employment. They are a fact of life. Rituals don't improve anything.

Know what you want. Your estimates will be destroyed if you don't. If you have to estimate, then you don't know what you're getting into. You are experimenting. Nothing will be precise.

Don't burden me with your stupid, pointless rituals, if you're going on adventures into uncharted territory. You're wasting time with rituals.

If you care about time, don't estimate. If you have to estimate, then stop caring about time.