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"Management is there to help employees do the work that actually brings value, not the other way around. In management-speak: management is waste." This is sel

• Lutger 3y ago
  As I said, it is management speak, coming from Lean. I didn't make this up. In my country Lean is hugely influential in all kinds of domains, not just in software development. Probably rivaling or surpassing Scrum. Maybe this isn't the case everywhere? This is merely a semantic play though, let me quote something: "Muda means wastefulness, uselessness and futility, which is contradicting value-addition. Value-added work is a process that adds value to the product or service that the customer is willing to pay for. There are two types of Muda, Type 1 and Type 2. Muda Type 1 includes non-value-added activities in the processes that are necessary for the end customer. For example, inspection and safety testing does not directly add value to the final product; however, they are necessary activities to ensure a safe product for customers. Muda Type 2 includes non-value added activities in the processes, but these activities are unnecessary for the customer. As a result, Muda Type 2 should be eliminated." - https://theleanway.net/muda-mura-muri https://theleanway.net/muda-mura-muri Muda is usually translated as Waste. Perhaps 'overhead' would be more accurate for Type 1 Muda. However this distinction between value-adding and 'required but not value-adding' is central to the way lean approaches optimization. Actually I don't really know why it isn't just translated as overhead, the term waste is bit offensive I think for some. Maybe that is the goal though.
• thaumasiotes 3y ago
  Yes, overhead has value. But you always wish you could make do with less overhead.
  • pc86 3y ago
    And you almost always can, it's just harder. Things are much easier with too much overhead. It's the same as computing performance. Working with 64K of RAM is hard, because you spend so much time on performance. Add 10,000x the overhead and you don't end up with 10,000x more powerful software, you end up with Electron and senior developers who don't know anything about performance testing. I worked for a company with maybe ~800 people in the IT division (IT in this context means software, DBA, security, help desk, actual IT, everything). Our reporting structure over the entire department, for each group, was something like Manager -> Sr. Manager -> Director -> Sr. Director -> VP -> Sr. VP -> Executive VP -> CIO -> COO -> CEO. We had about a dozen programmers, all one team. 12-14 people reporting to one manager. One manager reporting to one Sr. Manager. Two Sr. Managers reporting to one Director. I am not one of these "managers are worthless" people, I was a manager before and it was a lot of work. But you could have nuked half the management in the entire IT department, and probably 90% of the SVPs and EVPs, and after the dust settled work would have continued at exactly the same pace if not faster.
    • Lutger 3y ago
      Thank you, well put. I think that one of the things that make it hard, is not always knowing exactly what overhead can and what can't be eliminated (and how). This might be why its more helpful to just call it all waste (lean) to have a lens of optimization on both types.
• makeitdouble 3y ago
  You could call it a cost center. It's absolutely needed but doesn't drive profit on its own.
  • sidlls 3y ago
    Sure, it's a cost center, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide value. Infrastructure (real estate, utilities, etc.) are also costs--but without them there is no work that can be done. They provide value, and businesses pay for that value from revenue generated by the entire effort--cost centers and product makers alike.