A Bad Review

The Programmer — Fri, 26 Oct 2001 23:51:32 +0000

Resemblance to persons living or dead is statistically probable.

Name: Snopes, Flem
Title: Software Development Manager

Developing Others

Flem was not effective in giving team members an opportunity to be successful or to do high-quality work. The project development process was limiting and frustrating.

Rating: Did Not Meet Expectations

Integrity

Good work ethic. Big problem here is that Flem didn’t seem to see how poor project outcomes were a direct result of anything he did or didn’t do. He seemed to feel that he was a victim primarily of bad technology, as well as bad clients, bad luck, bad karma, etc. And while there were some unavoidable setbacks on the project, as there are on any project, Flem didn’t seem to see the human decision points in the process where he could have made a difference.

Rating: Met Some Expectations

Change Management

Flem was slow to react to changing circumstances. He took a “stay the course” approach and continued
to pursue strategies long after they had proven ineffective.

Rating: Did Not Meet Expectations

Communication

Flem is an articulate communicator but does not seem to be effective in reporting bad news to
clients and upper management. He has a “can do” communication style that unfortunately keeps people in a state of total denial about what’s actually happening. As a result, what could have been modest setbacks, had they been acknowledged as such and dealt with, escalated into full-blown breakdowns.

Rating: Met Some Expectations

Customer Service/Responsiveness

Flem was probably overly responsive to customer requests, with a resulting boomerang effect. He took client requirements at face value and did not provide the kind of risk management one would expect from a responsible professional. As a result, most of the client’s investment in web development was wasted on non-productive activities.

Rating: Met Some Expectations

Leadership

Flem maintains a positive attitude when things aren’t going well. Unfortunately, his projects never seem to be going well. He failed to fulfill the main role of a project leader, which is to monitor plan vs. actual and to take action as needed to bring the two closer together. In some cases, a project manager fails to observe that a project is veering off course, but I don’t think that was the case here. I think Flem just failed to act on that observation.

Rating: Met Some Expectations

Performance Effectiveness

Flem did not establish any sort of professional quality standards for the project, resulting in a considerable waste of time, money and human potential. He did not demonstrate the ability to effectively steer a software project.

Rating: Did Not Meet Expectations

Problem Solving/Judgment

Flem advocated a fairly random approach to problem solving. When dealing with system errors, rather than attacking root causes, we took some random action hoping that would fix the error. Sometimes it did, although we didn’t know why. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it introduced a new error. This is an area where a technical leader needs to take a stand and do the right thing.

Rating: Did Not Meet Expectations

Team Orientation

I think Flem’s failure to establish professional quality standards had a disheartening effect on the team. People will work hard to achieve excellence, but not if they see that management places no value on it.

Rating: Did Not Meet Expectations

Technical Expertise

Flem has some very good technical skills, but did not exhibit a good understanding of the full range of technical options, risks and tradeoffs involved in developing a web application.

Rating: Met Some Expectations

Thus spoke The Programmer.

Profiles in Management: The Protector

The Programmer — Tue, 09 Jan 2001 00:00:31 +0000

Cast of Characters

Manager, the leader of a software project that is floundering because his needlessly complex design cannot actually be implemented.

Programmer, a programmer on the project.

Manager: Keep working hard, and I will protect you should things break down.

Programmer: Protect me from what? That sounds kind of ominous.

Manager: Some people may be worried that if the project fails, they may get a bad review, or not get a bonus. But I’m looking at whether or not people are working hard, even if the project isn’t going well. So as long as you’re not goofing off, and you don’t have a bad attitude, you should be all right.

A “bad attitude” in these cases is defined as pointing out that 20 people have been working on the project for two months without producing a single working line of code, because they’ve been asked to yoke together a set of incompatible products and technologies selected by people who are not qualified or interested in assessing the technical implications of their decisions.

This, unfortunately, has become an increasingly common scenario in our business.

I should also mention that, in my experience, people are highly demotivated by opportunities to work hard in situations where they are predestined to fail.

But don’t worry! As long as you’re willing to keep beating your head against a stone wall of incompetent management, you’ll be as safe as Humpty Dumpty . . .

‘Why if ever I did fall off — which there’s no chance of — but if I did … Here he pursed up his lips, and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. ‘If I did fall,’ he went on, ‘the King has promised me — ah, you may turn pale, if you like! You didn’t think I was going to say that, did you? The King has promised me — with his very own mouth … to … to … ‘To send all his horses and all his men,’ Alice interrupted, rather unwisely.

— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Thus spoke The Programmer.

EppsNet: Notes from the Golden Orange » Performance Reviews

A Bad Review

Profiles in Management: The Protector

Cast of Characters