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Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? There’s a bit about “TPS reports” where multiple managers individually correct the main character on a new cover shee
by notjoemama 3y ago
Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? There’s a bit about “TPS reports” where multiple managers individually correct the main character on a new cover sheet. I’ve experienced that myself. The movie portrays it comedically but IRL it’s kind of a demoralizing experience. A bit soul crushing actually.
- nine_zeros 3y agoOffice space is actually accurate once you replace TPS reports with Status reports/JIRA tickets/Performance reports/Incident reports etc. The amount of dancing required for the sake of management in this industry is just insane.
- l33t7332273 3y agoI think “TPS report” is actually meaningless so it’s supposed to be swapped in for whatever is relevant to the viewer.
- aidenn0 3y agoIt's actually a real thing that software companies of the time were not unlikely to have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPS_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPS_report
- SquirrelOnFire 3y agoAs a long time PM (of all sorts of P)... If you don't want to have to talk to customers, which only one developer who I've ever worked with has actually wanted to do, you need a way to equip someone else to do so. Same thing if you want to keep your investors happy, your counterparts in other departments informed of when they need to have the hardware to pair up with your software ready, etc. There's definitely such a thing as too much overhead, but developers who just do the things they are interested in without considering that they are part of a larger business are the other side of the coin that you're describing.
- nine_zeros 3y agoI think there are few things that developers object to that don't appear to get addressed. 1. If other departments need metrics/insights/visibility, why don't they go collect it? As a PM, go collect that information yourself and deliver it to stakeholders? Why does everything need to be done by engineers? 2. When engineers get measured, evaluated and pitted against each other using these activities, it breaks camaraderie. We don't enjoy these activities because we see through the management practices of rating people based on the number of proverbial TPS reports or the quality of the cover sheet or the number of story points completed - none of which are actually important to the success of business but very important to the manager who will just recycle them upwards. Do you really think people are motivated to do this meaningless work?
- grecy 3y agoThe movie came out the same year all my friends and I graduated a Software Engineering degree. I love the movie, but damn it hits close to home and I never know if I should laugh or cry.
- epiccoleman 3y agoSilicon valley started the year I entered the tech workforce. Very similar feeling.
- sumtechguy 3y agoI have been unable to re-watch that movie. Because it hits too close to home.
- baz00 3y agoI haven’t seen it yet surprisingly. I will watch it tonight.
- freedomben 3y agoYou absolutely must. It was great when it was new, it's even better now.
- nier 3y agoSaw it after getting hooked on Silicon Valley and I’m glad I did. Both come from Mike Judge just as Idiocracy does which is simply brilliant. Had I known that he’s also behind Beavis & Butthead, I would have given it all a hard pass. Now I’m thinking, maybe I just misunderstood Beavis & Butthead.
- baz00 3y agoJust watched it. I am dying inside a little. Amazing film!