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by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 202 days ago
Honestly, I don't know if throwing people at a problem is the way to go. Doubly so given that a good chunk of the projects lately for me deal with third party vendors and those are so .. embedded that even getting basic requirements, documentation is an uphill battle ( which -- to me -- seems insane ). I have zero pull so I do what I can, notate the insanity for cya and move on.

I do agree on execs congratulating themselves afterwards though. It was obscene last year. This year it was mildly muted.

3 comments

Throwing people at a problem is very different from allocating an appropriate head-count of appropriately trained/educated people. A small but skilled team can accomplish a lot, whereas a lot of the wrong people can't do much at all. Generally there are more than enough warm bodies available, big companies are full of those, the issue is that skilled people aren't fungible - the team of 12 working on this project seems to be moving at a snails pace because really it's two people, both of whom are split across several other projects simultaneously, doing the real work and everyone else doing stuff that is likely unnecessary if not straight up counterproductive. It takes skill, effort and discipline to cultivate a team that actually has all the skills it needs to succeed, in the form of people who mutually work well together, to keep these people around over an extended period of time, and not try to split them up onto different projects and plug the gaps with the wrong people.
Sorry, but the multiple colleagues I've lost through multiple rounds of layoffs were not simply "people thrown at a problem". They were helping keep the lights on, which is now my responsibility for no increase in pay.
You can always throw other things at those people instead.