Prison v WorkManagement Practice in the New MilleniumA Typical Project ManagerSoftware MetricsHP to Address Employee BurnoutDilbert's Rules of OrderThe Manager's DesiderataUseful Consulting PhrasesDissembling AssociatesRejection Letter
Prison v Work
Management Practice in the New Millenium
A Typical Project Manager
Software Metrics
HP to Address Employee Burnout
Dilbert's Rules of Order
The Manager's Desiderata
Useful Consulting Phrases
Dissembling Associates
Rejection Letter
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Big Joke List
In prison you spend the majority of your time in an 8' X 10' cell.
At work you spend most of your time in a 6' X 8' cubicle.
In prison you get three meals a day.
At work you only get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.
In prison you get time off for good behaviour.
At work you get rewarded for good behaviour with more work.
In prison a guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
At work you must carry around a security card and unlock and open all
the doors yourself.
In prison you can watch TV and play games.
At work you get fired for watching TV and playing games.
In prison they ball-and-chain you when you go somewhere.
At work you are just ball-and-chained.
In prison you get your own loo.
At work you have to share.
In prison they allow your family and friends to visit.
At work you cannot even speak to your family and friends.
In prison taxpayers pay all expenses, with no work required.
At work you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they
deduct taxes from your salary to pay for the prisoners.
In prison you can join many programmes, which you can leave at any
time.
At work there are some programmes you can never get out of.
In prison there are wardens who are often sadistic.
At work we have managers.
I'm off to tell my boss he's an asshole and then steal his car...
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, states that when you discover you are riding a dead horse the best strategy is to dismount. However, Modern Management practice has developed far more effective strategies, such as:
Three men: a project manager, a software engineer, and a hardware engineer are helping out on a project. About midweek they decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour. Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie appears and says "Normally I would grant you three wishes, but since there are three of you, I will grant you each one wish."
The hardware engineer went first. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge house in St. Thomas with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas.
The software engineer went next. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean with no money worries." The genie granted him his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean.
Last, but not least, it was the project manager's turn. "And what would your wish be?" asked the genie.
"I want them both back after lunch" replied the project manager.
The Pizza Metric
How: Count the number of pizza boxes in the lab.
What: Measures the amount of schedule under-estimation. If people are spending enough after-hours time working on the project that they need to have meals delivered to the office, then there has obviously been a mis-estimation somewhere.
The Aspirin Metric
How: Maintain a centrally-located extra-large aspirin bottle for use by the team. At the beginning and end of each month, count the number of aspirin remaining in the bottle.
What: Measures stress suffered by the team during the project. This most likely indicates poor project design in the early phases, which causes over-expenditure of effort later on. In the early phases, high aspirin-usage probably indicates that the product's goals or other parameters were poorly defined.
The Beer Metric
How: Invite the team to a beer bash each Friday. Record the total bar bill.
What: Closely related to the Aspirin Metric, the Beer Metric measures the frustration level of the team. Among other things, this may indicate that the technical challenge is more difficult than anticipated.
The Creeping Feature Metric
How: Count the number of features added to the project after the design has been signed off, but that were not requested by any requirements definition.
What: This measures schedule slack. If the team has time to add features that are not necessary, then there was too much time allocated to one or more scheduled tasks.
The "Duck!" Metric
How: This one is tricky, but a likely metric would be to count the number of engineers that leave the room when a marketing person enters. This is only valid after a requirements document has been finalized.
What: Measures the completeness of the initial requirements. If too many requirements changes are made after the product has been designed, then the engineering team will be wary of marketing, for fear of receiving yet another change to a design which met all initial specifications.
The Status Report Metric
How: Count the total number of words dedicated to the project in each engineer's status report.
What: This is a simple way to estimate the smoothness with which the project is running. If things are going well, an item will likely read, "I talked to Fred; the widgets are on schedule." If things are not going as well, it will say, "I finally got in touch with Fred after talking to his phone mail for nine days straight. It appears that the widgets will be delayed due to snow in the Ozarks, which will cause the whoozits schedule to be put on hold until widgets arrive. If the whoozits schedule slips by three weeks, then the entire project is in danger of missing the July deadline."
Hewlett-Packard company today announced that it would take steps to bring its employee burnout rate in line with industry averages.
"HP traditionally has very low burnout rates of 2-3% annually," said spokesperson Lucy Sansouci. "The industry average is over five percent. Our most successful competitors average eight percent."
The company measures burnout rate by a complex formula involving unannounced departures, work-related shouting matches, and employee heart attacks.
HP plans to address the "burnout gap" with a series of measures, including:
"Bringing our burnout numbers in line benefits everybody," said Ms. Sansouci. "Shareholders benefit from the improved earnings. Employees benefit because profit sharing money is spread over a smaller base. This is the creative approach to reinvention that shows the world we are working in a garage."
Go placidly amid the politics and decision making, and remember what peace there may be in the silence of your own office.
(Remember, too, that if all else fails, there is always an educational course going on somewhere, set in salubrious surroundings - a course you may justifiably attend and for which the organization will pay.)
As far as possible, do not believe in miracles, but learn to rely on them. Speak convincingly when in doubt, and when in trouble, delegate.
Listen to others, for the dull and ignorant, sometimes even your own staff, have the inside information.
Keep interested in your own career, and take note of other people's mistakes, however mighty or humble, for they can be a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your affairs, for the organization is full of trickery. Remember that there is virtue in only giving verbal orders, never committing to storage accessible by others any writings that could ever conceivably be held against you.
Be yourself. Do not be cynical about profits, for in the face of all trends and economic indicators, governments, revenue authorities, financial controllers, accountants and auditors, you know that with careful programming, they can be as perennial as grass.
Nurture the strength of spirit to shield yourself from divisional cut-backs, but do not distress yourself with imaginings. Even if you are, as you know, only moderately able, you should have allowed for them in your carefully inflated forecasts. What else are spread sheets for ?
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering your naivety.
Many fears are born of overwork and exclusion from seemingly important meetings. Should this be troublesome to you, you can always join the local computing society and become its president: after all everyone else has. This will impress those set in authority, and will ensure that you will never have the agony of having to go through a solitary decision again.
Beyond a wholesome salary indexed to at least the rate of inflation and guaranteed in your contract, and also an inflation-proofed pension, and control of a reasonable expense account - where you define what is reasonable - be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the organization, no less that the directors, your fellow executives, the union representatives and your staff.
You have a right to be here, and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the structure is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with your superiors - whoever you conceive them to be, and whatever your actual (as distinct from theoretical) labours and aspirations. In the noisy confusion of the organization's life, keep peace also with your co-workers and those set under you.
Do not forget that with all its shame, drudgery, and broken dreams, the organization can still be a never-ending source of increased real income.
Be seen with enough of the right fellow senior executives in enough of the right meetings and important places: this indicates you are pulling your weight.
Strive to look modest but important, for however old the rule may be, it still has the mark about it of truth enshrined: an ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
Useful phrases you need when making an all important presentation to win that lucrative consulting contract!
These special phrases are also applicable to anyone working on a Ph.D. dissertation or academic paper anywhere!
Frank Lingua, president and CEO of Dissembling Associates, is the nation's leading purveyor of buzzwords, catch phrases and clichés for people too busy to speak in plain English.
"Business Finance" contributing editor Dan Danbom interviewed Lingua in his New York City office.
Danbom: Is being a cliché expert a full-time job?
Lingua: Bottom line is I have a full plate 24/7.
D. Is it hard to keep up with the seemingly endless supply of clichés
that spew from business?
L. Some days, I don't have the bandwidth. It's like drinking from a fire
hydrant.
D. So it's difficult?
L. Harder than nailing Jell-O to the wall.
D. Where do most clichés come from?
L. Stakeholders push the envelope until it's outside the box.
D. How do you track them once they've been coined?
L. It's like herding cats.
D. Can you predict whether a phrase is going to become a cliché?
L. Yes. I skate to where the puck's going to be. Because if you aren't
the lead dog, you're not providing a customer-centric proactive
solution.
D. Give us a new buzzword that we'll be hearing ad nauseam.
L. "Enronitis" could be a next-generation player.
D. Do people understand your role as a cliché expert?
L. No, they can't get their arms around that. But they aren't incented
to.
D. How do people know you're a cliché expert?
L. I walk the walk and talk the talk.
D. Did incomprehensibility come naturally to you?
L. I wasn't wired that way, but it became mission-critical as I
strategically focused on my go-forward plan.
D. What did you do to develop this talent?
L. It's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. When you drill down
to the granular level, it's just basic blocking and tackling.
D. How do you know if you're successful in your work?
L. At the end of the day, it's all about robust, world-class language
solutions.
D. How do you stay ahead of others in the buzzword industry?
L. Net-net, my value proposition is based on maximizing synergies and
being first to market with a leveraged, value-added deliverable. That's
the opportunity space on a level playing field.
D. Does everyone in business eventually devolve into the sort of
mindless drivel you spout?
L. If you walk like a duck and talk like a duck, you're a duck. They all
drink the Kool-Aid.
D. Do you read "Dilbert" in the newspaper?
L. My knowledge base is deselective of fiber media.
D. Does that mean "no"?
L. Negative.
D. DOES THAT MEAN "NO"?
L. Let's take your issues offline.
D. NO, WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE MY "ISSUES" OFFLINE.
L. You have a result-driven mind-set that isn't a strategic fit with my
game plan.
D. I WANT TO PUSH YOUR FACE IN.
L. Your call is very important to me.
D. How can you live with yourself?
L. I eat my own dog food. My vision is to monetize scalable supply
chains.
D. When are you going to quit this?
L. I may eventually exit the business to pursue other career
opportunities.
D. I hate you.
L. Take it and run with it
Dear Sirs
Thank you for your letter of 4 September. After careful consideration I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me employment with your company.
This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.
Despite your company's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore I will start work with your company on Monday 18 September at 8.30 am. I look forward to seeing you then.
Yours .........