5 ms·

Meta CTO told employees higher headcount resulted in 'untenable' slow movement

29 points by signa11 4y ago

maherbeg 4y ago
This is an org structure problem not a headcount problem. No team is empowered to make changes without 5 other teams' approval.
another2another 4y ago
>Meta CTO told employees higher headcount resulted in 'untenable' slow movement If only somebody had read the Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks (RIP) then maybe they would have realised they had to slim it down a bit.
LadyCailin 4y ago
If scheduling a meeting with a mere 50 people takes a month, then why does he think going from 70k employees to some fraction of that (but still well over 50) is going to change the meeting culture? It has nothing to do with the number of employees, but rather the culture that they have cultivated.
- ReptileMan 4y ago
  There is an old saying that when you are renewing a brothel, you shouldn't change the beds, but the sex workers. (It is a bit more spicy ofc when said informally) If you want to change the culture - you should first get rid of the people that embody the old culture (some of them may be able to be nudged into the new direction, but most not)
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    > change the beds, but the sex workers CTO (& middle management) are the sex workers, the beds are the run of the mill employees.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > you should first get rid of the people that embody the old culture Which, by definition, seems like it must include the person that has been in charge since day 1.
  - DharmaPolice 4y ago
    The problem is that some (maybe most) of those "old culture" people are also the ones keeping the current organisation going (in whatever state that might be). I've seen this in several organisations - staff representing the old order who had been with the organisation for years (or even decades) are got rid of. And because there's a feeling it's better to rip-off the plaster quickly - you get rid of multiple people at the same time. And then things start to go wrong.
- dbbk 4y ago
  I cannot fathom any scenario where building software would require 50 people to be in a meeting.
SilverBirch 4y ago
I don't know if anyone else has real experience of this, but I highly suspect that you can take a lean company, hire aggressively and turn it into a fat slow moving company. I strongly suspect if you take a fat slow moving company and cut it down it doesn't suddenly become lean again, it stays slow and fat, but just does less. Also, as a side note: >A meeting with 50+ people that took a month to schedule. Very funny. There's not a single meeting on earth outside of a parliament that needs 50+ people.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  > if you take a fat slow moving company and cut it down it doesn't suddenly become lean again, it stays slow and fat, but just does less Yes. And the reason for this is that the thing that slows companies down is not the number of employees directly but the evolution of the organization, and the forces which shape the evolution of orgs are human forces. As people seek status they seek to create layers of bureaucracy so they can manage/lead/be senior to others and this will cause your organization to become sclerotic and slow down. Removing people won't fix the problem any more than chopping off one of your own limbs will solve the problem if you become overweight.
- sirwhinesalot 4y ago
  >A meeting with 50+ people that took a month to schedule. It's amazing how they're oblivious to the real problem here.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
    Real solution is “this is when the meeting is, we’ll be making a decision then with or without you” Just gotta stop being silly at some point.
    - everforward 4y ago
      I would be very careful taking that line. Organizationally, cutting a group out of decision making is probably the fastest way to alienate them and make them hostile towards other groups. I have had this happen to me; my team is already overloaded from being pulled into various things, some team has a project we don't have time for, they go ahead without us, and it creates a mess. We're mad at them because their system won't work with ours, we blame them for moving ahead without us, they blame us for not being ready to move ahead. The end result was a bunch of re-work and resentment in both sides. It also screws up higher level planning and prioritization. It lets teams directly apply pressure to each other without filtering through upper management who can look at the big picture of prioritization before passing the pressure down. It doesn't matter if project X is more important, project Y is threatening to move ahead without us and we need to get in front of that before it becomes tech debt for us. Ultimatums don't work in relationships, and team dynamics are still a human relationship even if it occurs in a business setting. My real solution is that the lowest manager with oversight over both teams needs to clearly set priorities and expectations, and to enforce those. If that 50 person meeting is for a project with a low priority, people need to accept that it will likely move slowly. If it's for a high priority meeting, management needs to communicate that this meeting trumps other conflicts.
cleansingfire 4y ago
Paraphrasing the title: Management Blames Employees
- shapefrog 4y ago
  It must be bonus season.
captainbland 4y ago
If the benefit of adding a new employee is lower than the burden within the organisation that adding them causes, it sounds a lot like a concurrency issue more than an headcount issue as such. What they're describing seems to be too many people working on the overlapping/interacting projects and relying heavily on synchronous communication (which they can't even schedule, talk about contention!) to move. If the teams were better isolated, given more autonomy and asynchronous communication between them encouraged then things would probably go a lot more smoothly. So I think it's less of a headcount issue and more of a structure issue. But I suppose it also depends on what work is available and what the integration requirements are as well, depending on what they've got this might not be possible.

29 points by signa11 4y ago

This is an org structure problem not a headcount problem. No team is empowered to make changes without 5 other teams' approval.

another2another 4y ago

>Meta CTO told employees higher headcount resulted in 'untenable' slow movement If only somebody had read the Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks (RIP) then maybe they would have realised they had to slim it down a bit.

LadyCailin 4y ago

If scheduling a meeting with a mere 50 people takes a month, then why does he think going from 70k employees to some fraction of that (but still well over 50) is going to change the meeting culture? It has nothing to do with the number of employees, but rather the culture that they have cultivated.

ReptileMan 4y ago
There is an old saying that when you are renewing a brothel, you shouldn't change the beds, but the sex workers. (It is a bit more spicy ofc when said informally) If you want to change the culture - you should first get rid of the people that embody the old culture (some of them may be able to be nudged into the new direction, but most not)
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > change the beds, but the sex workers CTO (& middle management) are the sex workers, the beds are the run of the mill employees.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > you should first get rid of the people that embody the old culture Which, by definition, seems like it must include the person that has been in charge since day 1.
- DharmaPolice 4y ago
  The problem is that some (maybe most) of those "old culture" people are also the ones keeping the current organisation going (in whatever state that might be). I've seen this in several organisations - staff representing the old order who had been with the organisation for years (or even decades) are got rid of. And because there's a feeling it's better to rip-off the plaster quickly - you get rid of multiple people at the same time. And then things start to go wrong.
dbbk 4y ago
I cannot fathom any scenario where building software would require 50 people to be in a meeting.

SilverBirch 4y ago

I don't know if anyone else has real experience of this, but I highly suspect that you can take a lean company, hire aggressively and turn it into a fat slow moving company. I strongly suspect if you take a fat slow moving company and cut it down it doesn't suddenly become lean again, it stays slow and fat, but just does less. Also, as a side note: >A meeting with 50+ people that took a month to schedule. Very funny. There's not a single meeting on earth outside of a parliament that needs 50+ people.

seanhunter 4y ago
> if you take a fat slow moving company and cut it down it doesn't suddenly become lean again, it stays slow and fat, but just does less Yes. And the reason for this is that the thing that slows companies down is not the number of employees directly but the evolution of the organization, and the forces which shape the evolution of orgs are human forces. As people seek status they seek to create layers of bureaucracy so they can manage/lead/be senior to others and this will cause your organization to become sclerotic and slow down. Removing people won't fix the problem any more than chopping off one of your own limbs will solve the problem if you become overweight.
sirwhinesalot 4y ago
>A meeting with 50+ people that took a month to schedule. It's amazing how they're oblivious to the real problem here.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  Real solution is “this is when the meeting is, we’ll be making a decision then with or without you” Just gotta stop being silly at some point.
  - everforward 4y ago
    I would be very careful taking that line. Organizationally, cutting a group out of decision making is probably the fastest way to alienate them and make them hostile towards other groups. I have had this happen to me; my team is already overloaded from being pulled into various things, some team has a project we don't have time for, they go ahead without us, and it creates a mess. We're mad at them because their system won't work with ours, we blame them for moving ahead without us, they blame us for not being ready to move ahead. The end result was a bunch of re-work and resentment in both sides. It also screws up higher level planning and prioritization. It lets teams directly apply pressure to each other without filtering through upper management who can look at the big picture of prioritization before passing the pressure down. It doesn't matter if project X is more important, project Y is threatening to move ahead without us and we need to get in front of that before it becomes tech debt for us. Ultimatums don't work in relationships, and team dynamics are still a human relationship even if it occurs in a business setting. My real solution is that the lowest manager with oversight over both teams needs to clearly set priorities and expectations, and to enforce those. If that 50 person meeting is for a project with a low priority, people need to accept that it will likely move slowly. If it's for a high priority meeting, management needs to communicate that this meeting trumps other conflicts.

cleansingfire 4y ago

Paraphrasing the title: Management Blames Employees

shapefrog 4y ago
It must be bonus season.

captainbland 4y ago

If the benefit of adding a new employee is lower than the burden within the organisation that adding them causes, it sounds a lot like a concurrency issue more than an headcount issue as such. What they're describing seems to be too many people working on the overlapping/interacting projects and relying heavily on synchronous communication (which they can't even schedule, talk about contention!) to move. If the teams were better isolated, given more autonomy and asynchronous communication between them encouraged then things would probably go a lot more smoothly. So I think it's less of a headcount issue and more of a structure issue. But I suppose it also depends on what work is available and what the integration requirements are as well, depending on what they've got this might not be possible.