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>> The team's leadership should have reduced the workload of the team. This isn't always possible, especially given the target businesses that hang out here. T

>> The team's leadership should have reduced the workload of the team. This isn't always possible, especially given the target businesses that hang out here. This is just evading a tough question.

TeaDrunk 6y ago
Then the leadership should plan around this, given covid has so far been an 8 month+ shitshow into the future. If leadership can't handle a chronic issue within the org then this is bad leadership.
- owenmarshall 6y ago
  Any management that isn't looking at the current situation and planning for another year of the same – or worse – probably needs to find a new role.
WWLink 6y ago
Yes it is. They should hire another person.
Ericson2314 6y ago
But we should never take "the target businesses that hang out here" as a "given". If you aren't open to less working ours and less output, you will never get management's boot off your neck.
ChuckMcM 6y ago
In my experience it is. One property of a good manager is that they have a good idea of how much their team can produce over unit time. Combined with experience on the teams ability to integrate with other projects at delivery time and repair defects that arise, gives them a good idea how much time something will take to get done, plus or minus a small delta. Bad managers just say "You bet!" when given an unreasonable timeline (more work than can be done) and then push their workers too hard and blame them when upper management asks why the project is late. It is an all too common management pattern. When engineers talk about "How hard is management really? You just tell everyone else what to do and yell at them to get it done." they miss that one of the things you do as a manager is tell your boss, "Nope, can't do that without either additional people or additional time." Sometimes it is always time because not all projects can be broken up into parallel efforts. That conversation can be hard unless you've built up the level of trust and understanding with your manager so that they respect your time estimates and requests. Often times your first few encounters along this line you have to keep "parallel books" where you note what you thought it would take and you look at what it actually took, and what was asked. Bringing that information together in a 1:1 setting can help educate your manager that a) you know what you are doing and b) they should trust your judgement.

>> The team's leadership should have reduced the workload of the team. This isn't always possible, especially given the target businesses that hang out here. This is just evading a tough question.

TeaDrunk 6y ago

Then the leadership should plan around this, given covid has so far been an 8 month+ shitshow into the future. If leadership can't handle a chronic issue within the org then this is bad leadership.

owenmarshall 6y ago
Any management that isn't looking at the current situation and planning for another year of the same – or worse – probably needs to find a new role.

WWLink 6y ago

Yes it is. They should hire another person.

Ericson2314 6y ago

But we should never take "the target businesses that hang out here" as a "given". If you aren't open to less working ours and less output, you will never get management's boot off your neck.

ChuckMcM 6y ago

In my experience it is. One property of a good manager is that they have a good idea of how much their team can produce over unit time. Combined with experience on the teams ability to integrate with other projects at delivery time and repair defects that arise, gives them a good idea how much time something will take to get done, plus or minus a small delta. Bad managers just say "You bet!" when given an unreasonable timeline (more work than can be done) and then push their workers too hard and blame them when upper management asks why the project is late. It is an all too common management pattern. When engineers talk about "How hard is management really? You just tell everyone else what to do and yell at them to get it done." they miss that one of the things you do as a manager is tell your boss, "Nope, can't do that without either additional people or additional time." Sometimes it is always time because not all projects can be broken up into parallel efforts. That conversation can be hard unless you've built up the level of trust and understanding with your manager so that they respect your time estimates and requests. Often times your first few encounters along this line you have to keep "parallel books" where you note what you thought it would take and you look at what it actually took, and what was asked. Bringing that information together in a 1:1 setting can help educate your manager that a) you know what you are doing and b) they should trust your judgement.