Proj Management 7.2A There Are Several Symptoms

proj Management 7.2a There are several symptoms of cultural communications problems. The first is that Sid did not want to be honest with Judy right away; she had to pry the information out of him. The second is that the hours were way more than was needed. The third is that Randy had added hours to the estimate that Sid had originally provided. The fourth is that Sid indicated that if he failed to meet the target for any reason, there would be neverending negative consequences.

The fifth is that Sid is juggling many projects at once -- programming is the sort of work that requires intense concentration on a single task juggling multiple such projects simultaneously is not desirable for programmers. The first step to changing the culture in the department is that the problem needs to be clearly identified so that everybody knows what the current culture is and that it is problematic. Judy needs to lay out her analysis clearly so that everybody knows where she is coming from.

This is important because the next step is to create motivation and buy-in for change. Chances are pretty good that many other people within the department are well aware that the culture is problematic, and will be willing to work towards a change. For those who are more resistant, they need Judy to make the case clearly that the problem exists and needs to be remedied because it is holding the company back. That there will be negative consequences associated with maintaining the status quo and therefore change must happen.

There are many types of changes that need to happen. The first is with rewards systems. The current systems are entirely geared towards negative reinforcement, the proverbial "stick." People are doing just enough to avoid punishment, rather than pushing themselves to excel. There needs to be rewards for setting tough targets and achieving them, and a removal of the "stick" punishment for failing to meet targets. The methods of estimating durations can therefore at that point be more honest, because there is no longer any disincentive to being honest.

Also, task assignments seem to be problematic as well, because Sid is overwhelmed with work and that is dragging down his efficiency. This is why Judy needs to get "authentic" or honest communication flowing, so that she can better spread the work around, instead of it all ending up dumped on Sid's desk. If she has a better sense of how long things take and who can do what, she can spread the work around in a more efficient and effective manner than is being done at present. 3.

It is not a good idea to speculate as to why Randy took the 24-hour estimate and turned it into 32-hours. That sort of guesswork is exactly the problem. Judy needs to have a culture in place where she can simply as Randy straight up why he did that. There is no time to start instilling this honest communication than the present -- don't guess why Randy did that, ask him. II. I do not entirely agree with this.

First, catered affairs are loaded -- if you are going to do it, do it right. Make sure the food is high quality, because serving lousy food is a great way to disengage the employees. Serve the good stuff and get their attention. But I actually do not think that such meetings encourage honest communication.

They encourage many things -- sycophantic communication, and all other sorts of positive communication, but there are few employees who feel that a public setting is the time and place to challenge their bosses, especially in front of other C-suiters. Most executives can't handle the ego shot that comes from being challenged in front of their peers, and most employees are risk averse with respect to communication with senior managers. There are ways to encourage honest communication with the higher-ups, but this is not one of them. III.

As I said earlier, I cannot agree with speculating about Randy's motives for increasing the specs to 32 hours. I would ask Randy, rather than guessing about what he was thinking. We are trying to build a culture of honest communication, and putting words into other people's mouths is not a good way to start with that. In this case, I agree that there is a communication problem and there is probably also a problem with workload for some members. Programming requires a lot of focus, so juggling multiple tasks is.