3 ms·

I send in my procedural improvement reports and always assume they will get ignored. Rarely do I get surprised.

_jal 6y ago
Process improvements are typically valued at zero unless and until a director (or above) is annoyed by the issue addressed or, worse, their bonus may be impacted.
- corty 6y ago
  Process improvements are perfect CYA. You hand it in in writing, get a written turndown because too expensive/annoying/whatever. When shit hits the fan, you are covered. I like process improvement. Other than that, I only saw one improvement realized. It was one a colleage turned in, got rejected. Then turned in again almost verbatim by a manager 2 layers up, who got it accepted and got the bonus for it...
- slowmovintarget 6y ago
  Or they get read by the consultants who then take credit for the suggestion and get paid. Granted, the consultants are also a blame sink if the suggestion doesn't work, or ruffles feathers.
- numpad0 6y ago
  aka don't fix what ain't broke
lumost 6y ago
Many engineers/Creative professionals chafe at being told how to work, so they will resoundingly push back on any procedural change. Usually you'll find that as an individual contributor you have wide latitude to develop in any manner you see fit as long as you earn the trust of your manager and can satisfy his leadership's tracking requirements. On paper I often work in a scrum team, in practice I subdivide my own work along arbitrary story guidelines to make sure that at the end of the spring I have the requisite number of points + 20% on average. If someone else needs to pick up some work, I'll slice off a whole workstream for them - and then we'll subdivide the workstream to have the requisite number of points + 20% for them as well. I've worked in agile shops for 8 years at this point, and this approach has yielded the best results for both myself and the company - but "not using scrum/agile" is a great way to be viewed as rocking the boat in an unhelpful manner.

_jal 6y ago

Process improvements are typically valued at zero unless and until a director (or above) is annoyed by the issue addressed or, worse, their bonus may be impacted.

corty 6y ago
Process improvements are perfect CYA. You hand it in in writing, get a written turndown because too expensive/annoying/whatever. When shit hits the fan, you are covered. I like process improvement. Other than that, I only saw one improvement realized. It was one a colleage turned in, got rejected. Then turned in again almost verbatim by a manager 2 layers up, who got it accepted and got the bonus for it...
slowmovintarget 6y ago
Or they get read by the consultants who then take credit for the suggestion and get paid. Granted, the consultants are also a blame sink if the suggestion doesn't work, or ruffles feathers.
numpad0 6y ago
aka don't fix what ain't broke

lumost 6y ago

Many engineers/Creative professionals chafe at being told how to work, so they will resoundingly push back on any procedural change. Usually you'll find that as an individual contributor you have wide latitude to develop in any manner you see fit as long as you earn the trust of your manager and can satisfy his leadership's tracking requirements. On paper I often work in a scrum team, in practice I subdivide my own work along arbitrary story guidelines to make sure that at the end of the spring I have the requisite number of points + 20% on average. If someone else needs to pick up some work, I'll slice off a whole workstream for them - and then we'll subdivide the workstream to have the requisite number of points + 20% for them as well. I've worked in agile shops for 8 years at this point, and this approach has yielded the best results for both myself and the company - but "not using scrum/agile" is a great way to be viewed as rocking the boat in an unhelpful manner.