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So was it the rogue employee, or the conspiracy of the evil management to find a scapegoat for the cheating they decided to do? I always read about these 2 expl

So was it the rogue employee, or the conspiracy of the evil management to find a scapegoat for the cheating they decided to do? I always read about these 2 explanations. Both quite entertaining, and a little to much Hollywood-like to be completely true. Management by objective is the true problem here. Step 1: Management, moved by market, shareholder and/or own ambition, sets unrealistic goals - probably even unknown to it. Step 2: Employee, perhaps several levels of goal setting below, realises it can't be done, and cheats to save his career. I suspect this kind of systemic evil is involved in a lot of corporate misbehaviour. Todays organisations are not ruled by command, but by goals. And since the means to achieve that goal are not written anywhere, the management can't be accused of unlawfulness. And the employee who is bound by such goals finds himself in an awkward dilemma.

Serow225 11y ago
Spot on. And horribly widespread in many industries.
amelius 11y ago
This could only be the case if the engineer doing the development was the same person as the engineer doing the QA.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  This indeed. You can't just have a 'rogue' engineer doing this. This would have had to be a team. Unless, of course, VW's software engineering practices are from the dark ages. In which case, this is clearly a managerial issue.
- PinguTS 11y ago
  The QA is in the same boat. Because the goal is not set to an engineer as a person but to a department and team.
  - crpatino 11y ago
    If the goal of QA is not to be a hassle to Development, the easiest and cheapest way is to axe the whole QA department. And maybe outsource the whole operation to a tiny third party that will be never able to manage the workload, for PR reasons.
    - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
      One of the goals of QA is public relations - that is, to convince customers and insurance companies that "good engineering" is going on. You don't get good PR by axing your entire QA department.
      - crpatino 11y ago
        That's why you outsource them to the cheapest bidder. You have plausible deniability (I do care about quality, it's just those bad apples that deceived me as much as you), but in truth you were aware from the very beginning that they would not be able to cope with the whole package.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  And not just the QA at the lower level, at all levels. The whole VW saga is an epic failure of process, the fact that any of these products could make it out the door without management knowing about it is so incredible that they're guilty simply because they let it happen even if they didn't know about it. It's a company that is totally out of control from a quality and compliance viewpoint.
  - digikata 11y ago
    Right, if the QA didn't catch this on emissions, then all sorts of other aspects of the vehicle quality are in question too. Are the vehicles as safe as claimed for example?
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Exactly. I'd hate to find out my airbags would not have passed inspection but some QA dude figured that since I'd never find out until it was too late that it didn't matter anyway and nobody caught that. Contrived example but you get where I'm coming from, if the process is this broken anything could happen. That's why I said before this will damage VW's brand on much more than just fuel consumption. So far (luckily) the other German brands seem to have escaped association by origin.

Serow225 11y ago

Spot on. And horribly widespread in many industries.

amelius 11y ago

This could only be the case if the engineer doing the development was the same person as the engineer doing the QA.

JustSomeNobody 11y ago
This indeed. You can't just have a 'rogue' engineer doing this. This would have had to be a team. Unless, of course, VW's software engineering practices are from the dark ages. In which case, this is clearly a managerial issue.
PinguTS 11y ago
The QA is in the same boat. Because the goal is not set to an engineer as a person but to a department and team.
- crpatino 11y ago
  If the goal of QA is not to be a hassle to Development, the easiest and cheapest way is to axe the whole QA department. And maybe outsource the whole operation to a tiny third party that will be never able to manage the workload, for PR reasons.
  - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
    One of the goals of QA is public relations - that is, to convince customers and insurance companies that "good engineering" is going on. You don't get good PR by axing your entire QA department.
    - crpatino 11y ago
      That's why you outsource them to the cheapest bidder. You have plausible deniability (I do care about quality, it's just those bad apples that deceived me as much as you), but in truth you were aware from the very beginning that they would not be able to cope with the whole package.
jacquesm 11y ago
And not just the QA at the lower level, at all levels. The whole VW saga is an epic failure of process, the fact that any of these products could make it out the door without management knowing about it is so incredible that they're guilty simply because they let it happen even if they didn't know about it. It's a company that is totally out of control from a quality and compliance viewpoint.
- digikata 11y ago
  Right, if the QA didn't catch this on emissions, then all sorts of other aspects of the vehicle quality are in question too. Are the vehicles as safe as claimed for example?
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Exactly. I'd hate to find out my airbags would not have passed inspection but some QA dude figured that since I'd never find out until it was too late that it didn't matter anyway and nobody caught that. Contrived example but you get where I'm coming from, if the process is this broken anything could happen. That's why I said before this will damage VW's brand on much more than just fuel consumption. So far (luckily) the other German brands seem to have escaped association by origin.