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The thing I've found is that Jira has so many fields on its tickets that beg to be filled in, that PMs start filling them in, and before you know it they're all

The thing I've found is that Jira has so many fields on its tickets that beg to be filled in, that PMs start filling them in, and before you know it they're all mandatory and must be filled in. And organising that much state in the tickets becomes a full-time job, and so the PM ends up doing that - managing the state of Jira rather than managing the state of the project. The two become synonymous when they're not. When they inevitably diverge all the usual problems of project management get exacerbated horribly (in part because what should happen is all the state in Jira gets thrown away as it doesn't reflect reality, but that's a huge sunk cost so no-one does it). So yeah, I have found that the tool shapes the process, not the other way around. It would probably work the other way around if every organisation built their own project management tooling around their own processes. But that would be insane.

jordanbeiber 5y ago
So basically you are describing an organization of people that don't really understand what they should be doing. People led by a tool and not the other way around - and you blame the tool? I hear what you are saying, and I've seen the very symptoms you're describing - I've just stopped chalking it down to the tools. It's a symptom of something entirely different and much more challenging to deal with than a change in tooling.
- craftinator 5y ago
  If you provide a tool that let's managers easily and arbitrarily increase the requirements on their employees, over time they'll continue to do so, because it's a management tool and their job is to manage. I experienced this phenomenon when I was a designer / CNC programmer. We had a form for requesting a part to be designed and machined. It had a box for tolerance allowance, where the person requesting a part could specify how tight all the tolerances should be, and we had recently added in 0.0005 inches to the options, at the request of a customer. I left for a month to do training at another location and came back to find a ridiculously long backlog of work. The manager who'd stepped in for me had decided that tighter tolerances would make better products, so was selecting 0.0005" tolerance for every feature on every part. To make up for how ridiculously slow that made the machining process, he tried to micro-optimize work flows, readjust hours, push machine operators to "work harder". He wasn't a bad person, was an okay manager, we'd just given him the option of doing something stupid, and he'd done it then tried to use his managing skills to make it work. If you give someone the tool to do their job, make sure that misusing it feels hard.
  - jordanbeiber 5y ago
    He obviously did not understand what his job as a manager is about. Why on earth would a manager be allowed to set tolerances like how you describe, tool or no tool? It makes no sense and is first and foremost a management and cultural issue. Second a work process issue. Solid third, one of competency. Probably ways below numerous other problems lies the tool. You obviously needed to be able to set tight tolerances for some work, so… you seem to need the setting on occasion. These stories just blow wind in my sails! If you have management like this (american?) you must be measured like crazy - set goals based on metrics that will push things in a direction you see effective.
    - craftinator 5y ago
      > He obviously did not understand what his job as a manager is about. > Why on earth would a manager be allowed to set tolerances like how you describe, tool or no tool? He's not the expert in the field, I am. Normally, I would have vetted the work orders and fixed it before hand. This is similar to managers in the software world, where the team lead or senior engineer would say," No, we won't do that, it's a bad idea". He never should have been exposed to an option that could screw everything up so badly, but I mistakenly left it on the form. He was just trying to fix what he perceived as a potential problem. He was used to making small changes to work orders to save money or get a more refined product. The biggest problem with our company's structure is that the operators, for whatever BS org reason, don't have the "pay grade" to tell him to pound sand. Managers need to sit below engineers, in my opinion. > you must be measured like crazy - set goals based on metrics that will push things in a direction you see effective. In my sector of manufacturing, margins are king (regardless of locale). If you can cut 10 seconds from an operation, or find a tool that lasts 20% longer, you can save tens of thousands of dollars a year, so we track everything.
      - jordanbeiber 5y ago
        Again: describe a set of work principles explicitly that all agree on - it's a human communication and collaboration issue you were faced with. A tool is not responsible for this breakdown. Lack of clarity around ownership and responsibilities is, by the look of it. IM humble O.

jordanbeiber 5y ago

So basically you are describing an organization of people that don't really understand what they should be doing. People led by a tool and not the other way around - and you blame the tool? I hear what you are saying, and I've seen the very symptoms you're describing - I've just stopped chalking it down to the tools. It's a symptom of something entirely different and much more challenging to deal with than a change in tooling.

craftinator 5y ago
If you provide a tool that let's managers easily and arbitrarily increase the requirements on their employees, over time they'll continue to do so, because it's a management tool and their job is to manage. I experienced this phenomenon when I was a designer / CNC programmer. We had a form for requesting a part to be designed and machined. It had a box for tolerance allowance, where the person requesting a part could specify how tight all the tolerances should be, and we had recently added in 0.0005 inches to the options, at the request of a customer. I left for a month to do training at another location and came back to find a ridiculously long backlog of work. The manager who'd stepped in for me had decided that tighter tolerances would make better products, so was selecting 0.0005" tolerance for every feature on every part. To make up for how ridiculously slow that made the machining process, he tried to micro-optimize work flows, readjust hours, push machine operators to "work harder". He wasn't a bad person, was an okay manager, we'd just given him the option of doing something stupid, and he'd done it then tried to use his managing skills to make it work. If you give someone the tool to do their job, make sure that misusing it feels hard.
- jordanbeiber 5y ago
  He obviously did not understand what his job as a manager is about. Why on earth would a manager be allowed to set tolerances like how you describe, tool or no tool? It makes no sense and is first and foremost a management and cultural issue. Second a work process issue. Solid third, one of competency. Probably ways below numerous other problems lies the tool. You obviously needed to be able to set tight tolerances for some work, so… you seem to need the setting on occasion. These stories just blow wind in my sails! If you have management like this (american?) you must be measured like crazy - set goals based on metrics that will push things in a direction you see effective.
  - craftinator 5y ago
    > He obviously did not understand what his job as a manager is about. > Why on earth would a manager be allowed to set tolerances like how you describe, tool or no tool? He's not the expert in the field, I am. Normally, I would have vetted the work orders and fixed it before hand. This is similar to managers in the software world, where the team lead or senior engineer would say," No, we won't do that, it's a bad idea". He never should have been exposed to an option that could screw everything up so badly, but I mistakenly left it on the form. He was just trying to fix what he perceived as a potential problem. He was used to making small changes to work orders to save money or get a more refined product. The biggest problem with our company's structure is that the operators, for whatever BS org reason, don't have the "pay grade" to tell him to pound sand. Managers need to sit below engineers, in my opinion. > you must be measured like crazy - set goals based on metrics that will push things in a direction you see effective. In my sector of manufacturing, margins are king (regardless of locale). If you can cut 10 seconds from an operation, or find a tool that lasts 20% longer, you can save tens of thousands of dollars a year, so we track everything.
    - jordanbeiber 5y ago
      Again: describe a set of work principles explicitly that all agree on - it's a human communication and collaboration issue you were faced with. A tool is not responsible for this breakdown. Lack of clarity around ownership and responsibilities is, by the look of it. IM humble O.