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>That and having longer meetings/workshops to really talk through all the details as opposed to 30 minutes catch up everyday that involves multiple context swit

by apohn 8y ago

>That and having longer meetings/workshops to really talk through all the details as opposed to 30 minutes catch up everyday that involves multiple context switches. Thinking back on my experiences, this is a gem of an observation. Most people hate long meetings because they are just a lot of status updates with 2 or 3 people dominating the conversation. >In both small and large organizations, I've found that the productivity killer is trying to do too much that ends being nothing gets done at all. I'm curious about your thoughts on something I'm currently facing. When I was an IC at a medium sized organization, "trying to do too much" was typically manifested by over-committing/over-confidence in what could be delivered in the timeframe allotted. But for the most part everybody was generally aligned in the same way. At the two large orgs where I've worked, I've seen a lot of extra work come from teams being motivated in completely different ways. One team is focused on blame-avoidance, another in gaming KPIs, one team wants to show off how awesome they are, one group is just tagging along for visibility reasons, etc. So there's an incredible amount of "too much work" that has very little to do with actual execution. Have you seen the latter in medium or smaller organizations?

tixocloud 8y ago
> Thinking back on my experiences, this is a gem of an observation. Most people hate long meetings because they are just a lot of status updates with 2 or 3 people dominating the conversation. Agreed. I think meetings should strictly be for decision-making and everyone who's in it should have the power to say yes or no. > At the two large orgs where I've worked, I've seen a lot of extra work come from teams being motivated in completely different ways. One team is focused on blame-avoidance, another in gaming KPIs, one team wants to show off how awesome they are, one group is just tagging along for visibility reasons, etc. So there's an incredible amount of "too much work" that has very little to do with actual execution. I'm actually facing and faced the same thing with larger organizations. In my experience with smaller companies, it happens but to a lesser degree. It might be the case that I haven't been in a toxic culture small/medium-sized company as I can definitely see no reason why it would differ from a larger organization. My theory on larger organizations having this issue is that there's quite a lot of bloat and a lot of fear that if you're not doing anything, you will be restructured. Personally, I don't blame the teams who act and behave in this way - I would hold the senior leadership responsible for fixing the culture. Unfortunately, most are focused on business results as opposed to fixing softer things like culture. Someone needs to make it such that visibility and accountability are just irrelevant - everyone is in it together, succeed together and fail together. What's been your experience? PS. Just noticed you're in data science? Funny coincidence that I am as well.
- apohn 8y ago
  >My theory on larger organizations having this issue is that there's quite a lot of bloat and a lot of fear that if you're not doing anything, you will be restructured. Personally, I don't blame the teams who act and behave in this way - I would hold the senior leadership responsible for fixing the culture. Unfortunately, most are focused on business results as opposed to fixing softer things like culture. Someone needs to make it such that visibility and accountability are just irrelevant - everyone is in it together, succeed together and fail together. Everything you've said matches what I've seen. For the most part I don't blame the teams either, especially teams like Data Engineering/Database who get blamed for everything even though they are downstream of a lot of data providers. >PS. Just noticed you're in data science? Funny coincidence that I am as well. One small benefit (or curse, depends on how you look at it) being in a Data Science role is that I get visibility into a lot of the business stuff (e.g. corporate strategy) that Engineering groups (in the Engineering Org) can be isolated from. It's an interesting (also, sometimes seemingly insane) space to be in right now.

by apohn 8y ago

tixocloud 8y ago

> Thinking back on my experiences, this is a gem of an observation. Most people hate long meetings because they are just a lot of status updates with 2 or 3 people dominating the conversation. Agreed. I think meetings should strictly be for decision-making and everyone who's in it should have the power to say yes or no. > At the two large orgs where I've worked, I've seen a lot of extra work come from teams being motivated in completely different ways. One team is focused on blame-avoidance, another in gaming KPIs, one team wants to show off how awesome they are, one group is just tagging along for visibility reasons, etc. So there's an incredible amount of "too much work" that has very little to do with actual execution. I'm actually facing and faced the same thing with larger organizations. In my experience with smaller companies, it happens but to a lesser degree. It might be the case that I haven't been in a toxic culture small/medium-sized company as I can definitely see no reason why it would differ from a larger organization. My theory on larger organizations having this issue is that there's quite a lot of bloat and a lot of fear that if you're not doing anything, you will be restructured. Personally, I don't blame the teams who act and behave in this way - I would hold the senior leadership responsible for fixing the culture. Unfortunately, most are focused on business results as opposed to fixing softer things like culture. Someone needs to make it such that visibility and accountability are just irrelevant - everyone is in it together, succeed together and fail together. What's been your experience? PS. Just noticed you're in data science? Funny coincidence that I am as well.

apohn 8y ago
>My theory on larger organizations having this issue is that there's quite a lot of bloat and a lot of fear that if you're not doing anything, you will be restructured. Personally, I don't blame the teams who act and behave in this way - I would hold the senior leadership responsible for fixing the culture. Unfortunately, most are focused on business results as opposed to fixing softer things like culture. Someone needs to make it such that visibility and accountability are just irrelevant - everyone is in it together, succeed together and fail together. Everything you've said matches what I've seen. For the most part I don't blame the teams either, especially teams like Data Engineering/Database who get blamed for everything even though they are downstream of a lot of data providers. >PS. Just noticed you're in data science? Funny coincidence that I am as well. One small benefit (or curse, depends on how you look at it) being in a Data Science role is that I get visibility into a lot of the business stuff (e.g. corporate strategy) that Engineering groups (in the Engineering Org) can be isolated from. It's an interesting (also, sometimes seemingly insane) space to be in right now.