4 ms·
>So the need is not so much to know what the employees are working on but rather how the projects are going. This is usually handled by steering committees or s
by yvp 7y ago
>So the need is not so much to know what the employees are working on but rather how the projects are going. This is usually handled by steering committees or similar governance bodies, where each successive hierarchical level gets a broader (but necessarily more concise) overview of all the projects they are involved in.
I agree this seems to be a common pattern. You do run into multiple issues with it (though there is no perfect solution) - some of which already described by pg in one of his essays (http://paulgraham.com/boss.html http://paulgraham.com/boss.html).
I tend to think the quality of information is maybe inversely proportional to the levels it has to go through to reach the intended recipient as each layer will inevitably add noise/distortion.
- laurentl 7y ago> the quality of information is maybe inversely proportional to the levels it has to go through I think that each level distorts the message to bring it more in line with company culture (e.g. make it look better, or highlight blocking points, or focus on financial topics, etc.). It follows that the quality of the information doesn’t necessarily have to decrease - in theory, the right company culture will ensure that only the most relevant information is kept (and I’m pretty sure you can tie this to successful company traits) More generally, I think that in this context you can’t treat information quality as a purely objective measure. Here quality is (at least partly) in the eye of the beholder, so you could argue that making the reporting more in line with the expectations of you higher-ups actually increase quality.