--- In extremeprogramming@yahoogroups.com, "CORUM, M E [AG/1000]"
<m.e.corum@m...> wrote:
> This thread is moving faster than I can keep up with. Well, I
actually
> did try to get the director to talk to developers both with me
there and
> without me there. The director says that the developers are
unlikely to
> tell the truth to management either way. Hmmm. This was a
defining moment
> for me. That and when the director told me with a straight face
that it
> didn't matter what the metrics said. Management would choose to
ignore
> the metrics if they wanted to. This is what I'm up against and
maybe my
> situation is so unique that I'm over-reacting to Josh's branding
of IXP
> (not over-reacting based on my situation but based on the average
of how
> management behaves across IT shops). Is there some kind of
wonderful world
> out there where if I showed managers some charts with double
productivity
> and 10X fewer bugs that they would actually listen or even better,
ask me
> how they could do this on other projects? Oh, to dream.

I'm reading Lean Transformation, which is full of stories of
dramatic improvements in manufacturing quality and productivity that
are immediately dismantled as soon as the consultants leave the
building, even at the eventual cost of the jobs of the people doing
the dismantling. Which is to say, you are not alone.

Harvard Business Review has an article this month about Bill
Bratton, who has turned around 5 police organizations, including the
whole of NYPD. You should read the article, but the sequence I took
away was:
* Put the managers in direct contact with the problem
* Focus you resources on the single worst problem
* Enlist powerful allies
* Marginalize or eliminate naysayers

Not a program for the weak of heart, but then we've already
established that we are foolhardy, a conjunction of "fool"
and "hardy".

Kent