Why Don't You Get a Job

Chris,

You've gotten me onto a weird point where I'm having to defend upper management and don't think I don't hate you for it. Take a look at what the Agile Manifesto says about upper management's role. It doesn't. Look at what Scrum says about Upper management or managers in general. It doesn't. Look at any of the frameworks and until you get to Scaled frameworks none of them talk about upper management or what they should be doing.

Look at most business classes and my MBA courses none of them talked about what upper management does either. There isn't a clear path on what you're supposed to do once you hit director level. Not saying the job isn't useful or for some corporations needed.

"Well, I guess it ain't easy doing nothing at all
But hey man, free rides just don't come along
Every day"

-Offspring (Why don't you get a job)

When people don't know what they're supposed to be doing they make up things to show their use for the company. I'm pretty sure that's what these measurements are for. They help the company in a small way do way more damage than they're worth and allow for more fires to be put out and showcase the skills the exec has and the importance of the role.

So now that I'm OKR centered and trying to track productivity for my boss to show them what's going on how do I do that? You put down tracking systems and mandate that your employees meet those targets. No one cares if it hurts productivity they must be as slow as I am everyday. Gotta track exactly how slow these programmers are so we set up mandates on tokens, and track productivity right at its core. Go back to your office then and light your prayer candle to Jack Welch.

One of the biggest problems with managers or people who have bullshit jobs is that they don't know what to do when they've got downtime. That's a real term by the way, Bullshit Job, I'm referring to when people hire others just to posture in front of the company and all their job implies is checking boxes. There is a lot of downtime for a good manager at a solid company. There is very little if they're not good at their job or the company is flailing. I always like to ask when I'm in interviews for Scrum Masters or Managers what they do with down time. If the answer is they find something to do that usually means watch out they're about to make a new dashboard that won't help anyone or they're going to fuck with the team in ways that nobody needs. I've seen Scrum Masters do all sorts of Agile hijinks to showcase the velocity of their team over months comparing it to other teams and a mystifying amount of what the hell are you smoking to think this helpful for the team.

Let's talk about the other side. Getting metrics is hard both inside and outside the company. Companies bend over backwards for you to fill out a survey that they treasure like gold when it says what they want it to say. Internally they want to know what's going on in the company so they can increase efficiencies and make more product for their customers. Cause that's the only thing customers want right? Not well thought out programs that solve their problems. They want a massive bloat of code that asks them to fill out a survey every 2 minutes while they're just trying to get their fucking taxes done.

Chris, 

You're in one of these positions where you don't have much to do except shepherd your team. I know I say that while way on the other side of town, doing nothing because I don't want to start something when I have my final day coming up when they're letting me go.

What do you do when you're slow?

How do you make sure you're not creating work for an overly worked team? 

How do you do that while adding insight that your bosses crave?

I hope that helps.