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Subject:RE: 60 Hours per Week at Level 1 Process Maturity From:"Guy A. McDonald" <guy -at- nstci -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 3 Sep 1999 16:59:49 -0500
Andrew Plato said:
> In other words, you cannot plan for genius on a Gantt chart.
True - and some companies delude themselves to think that hours-worked are
directly proportional to profit.
How many people on this list work for a company that still have the original
entrepreneurs involved in operations? Since most of you work within software
development, the numbers prove a majority will answer "yes" to the question.
Stereotypically, the entrepreneur doesn't know how to relax and cannot stop
thinking about his/her creation. Fear of loss motivated by a sweat-equity
investment, prevents them from letting someone else run the company.
Unfortunately, poor morale often results from this type of situation where
unsound business solutions thrive.
My observation --- management ego is inversely proportionate to worker-bee
morale.
>There are infinite examples of companies with great process models who are
filing for Chapter 11. Case in point - Iridium.
Out of respect for the fine folk at Carnegie Mellon, methinks IBM should be
mentioned in contrast to Andrew's statement.
>This company went broke finding efficiency in a market that did not exist.
Didn't the big problem with Iridium lie with the business model? Offtopic
from technical communications - so please don't respond to the list.
> Process models do not make companies richer, people more fulfilled, or
products better. Only hard-work and good engineering can do that.
This picture is painted with too broad a brush Andrew. All IT and business
activities should be regularly scrutinized to identify areas where
improvements, however small, should be made. There is a difference between
resource optimization and process improvement. Telling the original writer,
"you're just making things more organized and trying to work less" is
somewhat confusing to me. Resource optimization raises questions about
money, space, time or people.
After reading this thread, I think there is some confusion about process
management and resource control.
