Re: In the Trenches, A Bit of Venting

[Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

"Gary S. Callison" wrote...

>> Sure, if you work in a "lets play the blame game" kind of company, then
>> this might work.

> It also works in organizations back here in the real world, where the
> goal is to produce what the client wants. My first reaction to reading the
> rest of your post was "Now that's a curious, ill-informed, and inaccurate
> characterization, bordering on an insult, of damn near every organization
> I've ever worked in", but then I saw, in the thread "

My statement was of a rhetorical nature. This is why the words "kind of company"
and "if" are used. It was not directed at you. But if you want it to be and you
want to be insulted by it - be my guest - but the argument was not directed at
you personally. When it is, I will mention you by name. 

>> 1. We can't meet the deadline because SME 1 and SME 2 won't get back to
>> us with the information.
>Get it somewhere else. Information rarely exists in a vacuum.

This and all your other responses, Gary, sound like a sane and
"solutions-oriented" approach. My point was to contrast this against places that
(for whatever reason) don't focus on the solution, they focus on blaming people
and processes. Which may be fun, but isn't terribly productive. 

> Sometimes, the process _is_ the problem.

Sometimes? 

> Failures happen. Those failures are the responsibility of one or more
> people- the guy who signed the contract, the project manager, the team
> lead, the person actually doing the work. After those failures happen, and
> those people are identified, the grownups among us will say "Yeah, I
> screwed up there. I didn't give myself enough time to do X" or "I didn't
> spend enough time bugging the SMEs" or "I didn't plan this as well as I
> could have", or what-have-you. 

Sounds great. But unfortunately, what you describe and why I speak of are more
rare than you may realize. I've been inside a lot of companies in the past 10
years. And blaming people and processes for failure is a lot more prevalent that
you might think. 

> When you find one of those jobs that doesn't involve any hard work, please
> let me know.

Are you kidding...I am keeping that knowledge all to myself. :-) 

>> I realize many organizations are obsessed with blame. That is usually
>> due to a crappy corporate culture. But you are not doing them any
>> favors by going along with that work ethic. You're just following the
>> lemmings over the cliff.

>I've been called a lot of things, but never a lemming. Please spare me
> your ad-hominem and stick to the subject.

Again, you're inserting yourself into my example and then getting insulted. I was
not attacking you personally. 

Andrew Plato 

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