Re: Measuring Productivity

[Mary Bull <mbull -at- DAYNA -dot- COM>]

This thread is very interesting and appropriate for my group at this time. I'm
continually frustrated right now with the efforts of people in my company to
implement Total Quality Management (TQM) and bean counting in a shotgun
fashion. I agree that some form of productivity/quality management charting
must happen, but we're trying to implement too many at the same time. For
example, the writers and artists are being asked to collapse production
creative time while keeping quality up. Oh, yes, I can write garbage fast and
furious (but my conscience won't let me). I can also product a lot of nearly
empty pages. I haven't been able to find a way of measuring quality. Because
the writers don't have final say over our documentation (the product
marketing folks do), any errors reported by customer service fall on _our_
shoulders.

I've been doing some research in TQM theory. One of the most important things
I've learned is that you can't implement it in all companies in the same way.
In fact, most of TQM and similar methods are just a way of using common sense
- unfortunatly their implementers usually lack a lot of the common sense to
use the tools efficiently and effectively.

Sorry this sounds so negative. I've been spending 30+% of my working time in
meetings lately; have been told to say "no" _and_ be more flexible; attend
more TQM meetings; do customer surveys; do product manager's work for less
than half the pay; and in my spare time write documentation that would take
full time. The only thing that keeps me here are the neat products and
company loyalty.

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Love my work - hate my job
Mary Bull (mbull -at- dayna -dot- com)
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