Conference 7.286::digital

    Wow, like I was saying this seven years ago.
    
    The position of the company is like the position of the former
    government of Peru: national per capita income rose when a pig was born
    and was lowered when a human child was born.
    
    The key to getting Digital out of this mess is only partly cost control.
    The company needs people with the right skill sets and attitudes.
    
    The skill set issue has been beaten to death here as horror story after
    horror story has been described where training, equipment, software,
    and documentation has not been available to transform employees of the
    80's into employees of the 90's.
    
    What's at the heart of the problem with Digital now is the lack of
    leadership and the canyon of views that top management has with the
    role of Digital in the future and the views of the employees I speak
    to, and what's the fantasy and what's the market reality.
    
    The dedicated employees of Digital and the ones who in their heart know
    that the company stills needs them are waiting for the nonsense to stop
    and for a real strategy to emerge.
    
    New products not new org charts are going to be the key to
    profitability.

    
    
    	For those of us that are not close to the actual sales of DEC's
    	products, can you give us some insight into what actually makes
    	up the "cost of sales"? To me, this seems to be a combination of
    	customer meetings, some benchmarks, maybe a dinner or two, a few
    	brochures or whatever, plus your salaries. These all seem to be
    	reasonable and expected costs. What is it about the "cost of sales"
    	that is out of line? In other words, for a $1 million sale, what
    	is the typical cost to DEC (realizing that the cost for selling
    	1,000 terminals will vary compared to the selling cost of a 9310)?
    
    	Of course, my perceptions as to the components of "cost of sales"
    	could be way out of line....?
    
    	John

    "Cost of sales" is NOT a technical accounting term.  It is distinct from
    "Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses" (SGA) and "Cost of Goods
    Sold"
    
    In technical terms, "cost of sales" is a blend of "cost of goods sold"
    and SGA.  Cost of goods sold is the total cost of getting merchandise
    into a warehouse (or better a shipping dock) for the stuff that is
    actually sold.  The unsold products are counted as inventory and that's
    different.
    
    SGA covers all aspects of marketing and selling (advertising, sales
    salaries)
    
    Sales - Cost of Goods Sold = Gross Profit
    
    GP - all operating expenses - depreciation = Earnings before interest
    and taxes
    
    EBIT - interest expense - taxes = Net Profit

    I must agree with the base note, the past month with all the rumors
    and such has done nothing to bolster sales in fact in some cases it has
    just the opposite effect.
    
    We in sales, I am in support, have been under expense stree for a year
    now. We need receipts for everything, even a $2.75 BK Broiler at Burger
    King when we travel. The moral in the sales force stinks, everyone is
    wondering who is next to get the "package", and I speak not for just my
    own local office but throughout the field.
    
    The problem is at the top in this company, we need leadership not bean
    counting. We need a dynamic leader of people not of ledger books. We
    products that are on-time and do what we say they will on day one.
    
    I have worked for DEC for four years, I grew up on PDP-11 and am a true
    VMS bigot that has fallen for the performance of RISC if not the Unix
    way of doing things, I love working for this company, but we need to
    get our act together or people like me and many others will not be
    around for the next "package".
    
    
    
    Frank

    Let's be clear about "Leadership".
    
    Most of what I hear from people in the trenches is an indication of a
    combination of confusion, misunderstanding, and resistance to change
    along with distrust and me-firstism.
    
    Yet, when I hear (read) the words attributed to some of our "Leaders",
    they sound reasonable (to me).  Yes, leadership by example would be
    more effective than the verbal kind we usually receive, but, all in
    all, I haven't seen what I consider as major _new_ blunders, just the
    same old mistakes we've always made.
    
    Many of us now believe that we cannot survive the repetition of the old
    errors, that we need a radical reformation that will make all mistakes
    disappear, as if by magic.  Well, I'm sorry, I still don't believe in
    magic.  So that's not a real option.
    
    I think we need to be clearer about what we want and expect from our
    leaders.  So here is my attempt.
    
    
    
    We have people who misunderstand our strategies, either because they
    are poor listeners/readers or because the message they received was
    poorly prepared or delivered.  Whatever we mean by "Leadership", it
    should address this common class of problem. 
    
    	*WE WANT CLEAR COMMUNCIATIONS, QUICKLY, ALL THOUGHOUT DIGITAL*
    
    Digital has always suffered from  "consensus congestion".  Nobody has
    the authority to say "Yes" and everyone has the authority to say "No".
    This has led to immense waste of resources as we constantly change the
    priorities within organizations and try to reconcile seemingly
    incompatible priorities between organizations.  
    
    There are serious debates going on at all times.  Many of us know what
    they are much of the time.  But nobody is ever told when the debate is
    over.  I think that a major contribution to "Leadership" by all of the
    members of the Executive and Operations committees would be to formally
    distinguish between what has been decided and what is still under
    evaluation.  
    
    	*WE WANT CONSISTENT COMMUNICATIONS FROM MANAGERS THROUGHOUT DIGITAL*
    
    When a reasonable consensus has developed, still some managers (and
    individual contributors) feel free to play Devil's advocate or to just
    plain opt out of the responsibility for passing on the information if
    they personally don't agree.  This kind of behavior is destructive. 
    Many times the exact resolution of the issue is less important than
    having a common plan and getting to work on it.  "Leadership" includes
    the disagreeable task of confronting a colleague or subordinate with
    the destructive nature of his/her behavior and demanding that they get
    on the team or out!
    
    	*WE WANT MANAGERS TO BE DISCIPLINED ON DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIORS*
    
    As I said above, we repeat old mistakes.  I believe that this is
    largely due to the failure to address them in public within Digital.
    There seems to be no way for our managers to learn by the mistakes of
    others.  Managers either believe that mistakes are not punished or they
    fail to recognize them.  "Leadership" would include public post-mortems
    by managers for unachieved goals, failed strategies, or lost
    opportunities. 
    
    	*WE WANT TO BE PART OF A COMPANY THAT LEARNS FROM ITS MISTAKES*
    

    > I think it would be worthwhile if people had specific examples of
    > such "short-sightedness" that it might be useful.  
    
    We used to tell our customers that when they bought our services
    ( I was a software specialist in a delivery unit ) that they got
    not just our technical expertise, but that of all of DEC.
    
    In the position I hold now, as a customer instructor, I no longer
    have any official technical support because of cost cutting.  It
    seems to me this is cutting our own throat.  My productivity has
    decreased as I search for answers to my technical questions in 
    NOTES conferences (this is very slow) and my customers are less
    satisfied.
    
    

    ref .-1
    >seems to me this is cutting our own throat.  My productivity has
    >decreased as I search for answers to my technical questions in 
    >NOTES conferences (this is very slow) and my customers are less
    >satisfied.
    
    Dont Blame NOTES !
    
    Using Notes file to assist product support and Sales and field 
    engineers is (IMHO) a very good and efficient way, if done right.

If organized along the lines of a note file per product (or a related
collection of products), and proper use of key words etc.. and that
has membership access to it, for example field support engineers, engineering 
technical support  etc.. , should help you in finding answers to your
technical questions quite fast.

example,
you'r in field, customer have a question/problem about a product, you
access the notes file, search for related topic/problem using keywords
(should take few minutes), the result is that either someone has already
asked about the problem and have an answer, or pointer to a solution.
if so, you have saved time, and utilized the time that was already used
by some one else to get the answer.

if no answer exist, you post customer problem/question using correct keywords,
and also contact technical support. this way when an answer is arrived at, the
answer is also posted as a reply, this reply will later on help another
field engineer who might have similar question/problem on this product.

this process , if done right, should result is faster customer response,
by sharing problem resolutions/answer/technical informations between all
field and technical support of the specific product.

NOTES is a tool that should be utilized more to bring groups from 
Sales,Field,Support and Engineering closer together to provide better and faster
response that will result in more customer satisfaction and MORE sales !

just my opinion, offcourse.
/Nasser
    

    re: .7, I don't think .6 was "blaming" Notes.  The comment that Notes
    is slow is accurate.
    
    The "support" question is critical.  I'm talking here about employees
    who have customer contact and are asked questions by customers, and
    then expect that other employees (a) have answers and (b) have formal
    management-recognized obligations to provide them accurate answers in a
    timely manner.
    
    .6 makes the claims that he can't identify such people in the company
    for his group.  I'll assume for a moment that he did the right thing
    and complained to his manager and is complaining here because the
    answer was the usual nonsense about funding.  It's really about
    management failure:  Leaving the questions unanswered by .6's customers
    is going to save the company money?  Gimme a break.

    In one of my interviews with COD the folks were looking for a VMS guru.
    I was asked about what I would do if confronted with something that I
    had not seen before and didn't know how to handle.  I don't know what the
    right answer was, but I know that wrong answers include consulting
    documentation, using Notes and tapping the brains of the folks I knew in 
    the Metrowest area.  (I think the correct answer was to consult fellow
    team members which I pretty much took as given.) I was specifically told 
    that once I was in the field I would lose pretty much all contact with the 
    folks back east and couldn't count on any help from there.  Needless to 
    say, I didn't lose any sleep over not having that position offered to me.
    But, I have to wonder about people in the field that feel so isolated
    from the expertise "back east".  Aren't we supposed to be networking
    experts?  Shouldn't things be linked a bit better?
    
    Steve

Well, I moved to the Field last year after spending 13 years in the 3M area. 
Although there are a number of sources for getting answers available to Field 
employees, I do not hesitate to call upon my connections in New England if I 
think I can get the best answer there in the shortest amount of time. As it 
turns out, I don't use my connections very often. Most of my answers are 
gotten electronically (Notes, VTX, etc).

And my management and my customers really don't care where I get the answers, 
as long as they are accurate and timely.

regards,

Jim
Sales Support Consultant
Xerox Account Team
Rochester, NY

I too occasionally call on contacts from engineer-land (been in the 'field'
close to 2 years now...) and find that the interaction is very helpful on both 
ends...  In fact, I think this company ought to encourage more movement from 
field to engineering and visa-versa.

I found that while in Maynard I knew 'a whole lot about a little' while out 
here I know 'a little about a whole lot' and in fact have been exposed to bits 
and pieces of things that would have taken many years to find out from my cube 
in PKO...  Interacting with customers and learning what the other bits of 
Digital are up to has been a real eye-opener and if given the chance, I would 
certainly do a lot of things differently, and I hope more efficiently, than my
colleagues from 'back east' and I had done in the past.  

Most of the engineering groups I had been exposed to had a real tendency to 
do a lot of inbreeding and I think getting new blood in from other places 
(even different parts of the company, and I don't mean a transfer from MRO to 
LTN) would tend to stir up new ideas and methods that are sorely needed. 

Now...  If only you didn't have to live in NE to reseed some of the lessons 
learned back to where they can be applied...

/mike

re: .7    

    >  Dont Blame NOTES !

    I certainly don't blame Notes.  I use notes extensively, but it
    has its limitations.
    
      
re: .8

  >  .6 makes the claims that he can't identify such people in the company
  >  for his group.  I'll assume for a moment that he did the right thing
  >  and complained to his manager and is complaining here because the
  >  answer was the usual nonsense about funding.  

    
    That my only technical support is Notes conferences, personal
    contacts or individuals in my own office is what I was told 
    by the two managers I report to.  I mentioned to them that the 
    questions I had were beyond the expertise in our office and  
    could not always be handled by using Notes.  Questions that
    are rather general in nature can require a lot of searching.
    Even in Notes, some questions just don't get answered.  
    Also, if I remember correctly, I was once told to keep in mind
    that what is posted in Notes is unofficial, i.e. there is no 
    guarantee of accuracy.    
    
    I do have personal contacts that work for the CSC.  Isn't there 
    something absurd about me contacting them with questions through
    unofficial channels when their official job is to answer such 
    questions?  Since answering my questions this way means that they
    are doing their jobs but not getting credit for it, I have decided
    that this is not a good solution.  
    
    
    I believe that the collective expertise that we have at DEC is
    one of our stongest assets.  It's too bad we can't make better
    use of it.  I will probably take this question up the management
    ladder, but I have been led to believe that the answer will be
    the same.

>      <<< Note 1518.8 by SDSVAX::SWEENEY "Patrick Sweeney in New York" >>>

>    re: .7, I don't think .6 was "blaming" Notes.  The comment that Notes
>    is slow is accurate.

I disagree. Notes is fast, it's the network that's slow.

I'm entering this from 3000 miles away and it's as quick as if it's
in the next room. 

If the network is congested, there's plenty tools such as SPAN,AVN
and MAIL_VAXNOTES to help alleviate the problem.

Craig

    I cant believe what I read.
    Since When is helping someone else in the company is something to
    be afraid of doing?
    something is wrong somewhere, When you see a problem, and you know you can 
    help in solving , but you dont because of X reason, whaterver this X 
    reason happen to be.
    
    the whole company should work as one team, if someone from your team
    asks you for help, and you can help, then just DO IT !
    
    I may be too naive, and been only 2 years in DEC, but please educate me 
    more on how could this be wrong?
    

    Two comments:
    	Re: .13
    	First, it doesn't bother me whether notes is "fast" or "slow" as
    	far as access speed is concerned. I think what's more important
    	is the speed of RESPONSE can be slow, due to the fact that all the
    	folks who provide information and answers have other jobs to do.
    	Answering/assisting the Noters isn't part of their primary job, or
    	necessarily even counted as a "goodness" in their performance
    	reviews.
    
    
    	Re: .15 
    	I think the issue of willingness to help comes down to the
    	individual's manager. In these days of "what have you done
    	for me lately", if your manager doesn't value lending assistance,
    	and you are otherwise swamped, you don't do it. The exception
    	is if the assistance is answering a short question or something
    	not requiring a great deal of time; then I'd expect it of anyone.
    	
    
    And one observation...
    
    	It pains me that the company I joined 7 years ago, the one with
    	the get the job done attitude, has turned into the company
    	that says "do what we tell you is your specific, narrowly focused
    	job", and then makes it tough to do even that. At $100 a call
    	to the CSC (if it can't be charged it to the customer), I can imagine
    	difficult circumstances arising  trying to balance managers'
    	new P&L responsibility against that of responsibility to the
    	customer. This hasn't hit my job full force yet, but the
    	stories I hear and see are enough to bother me...

    What we're NOT talking about here is whether a ship that hears an SOS
    ought to respond or not.
    
    We're talking about whether a ship that leaves port has a radar and
    backup generators.
    
    When people are placed in the position of answering questions from
    customers they ought to have their management backing them up with
    formal and funded means of getting answers.
    
    Otherwise what does an employee say to a customer besides "I entered
    your question into a VAX Notes Conference, and there's been no
    response, but that can be expected, because no one is committed to
    answer questions entered there."
    
    Do we want to place the of .0 in the role of Blance DuBois in "A
    Streetcar Named Desire" who said "I've always depended on the kindness
    of strangers"?

    Are things that bad in the field?  Are we able to support our
    customers?  Are we losing good people?  How long will it take for
    things to settle down?
    
    Ed

    Folks,
    
     ( Rathole alert )
    
     I think the "speed" question is relative. Notes is very "fast" in 
    comparison to researching and solving a problem yourself. The problem 
    lies in the typical situation a "field" employee is put in. You get to
    the customer site, say 50 miles from the Digital office. You are asked
    to provide general support of VMS products, say VMS, Clusters, Decnet,
    RDB, CDD, CMS, pick your favorite language, maybe a PC or 2, and so on. 
    The customer/system has a problem and may not have telephone support
    in their maintenance contract.
     
    The old way things worked was when I didn't know the answer was to call 
    the support center ( after a reasonable and appropriate effort of RTFM). 
    My guideline was if the customer is paying $130 or more an hour for me
    to read the manual, maybe it is more cost effective and "faster" than 
    notes would be in this case. 
    
    It seems to me at one time Software Services "funded" some of the
    CSC's. That may not be true anymore. The current "rumor" in the field
    is we will be charged something for each call we place to internal
    support ( not using a customer id number ).
    
     Chuck
     Chuck

    
    	Notes is a very important medium to share information of a
    	general nature, if you are not particularly interested in
    	accuracy or timeliness. Notes should never be used in place
    	of the normal escalation channels for problem resolution.
    	Notes can be useful as a method of establishing contacts, i.e.,
    	"Give me a call at xxx-xxxx and we can discuss your problem".
    	But I cannot ever imagine going to my manager or a customer
    	and saying that the problem resolution may depend on a notes
    	response, even if it really might. 
    
    	I am mostly familiar with hardware support, and in my experience
    	I've never had any trouble getting answers to problems. But if the
    	same support mechanisms do not exist for all other groups in the
    	company (software, sales, etc.) then that is a problem that needs
    	to be addressed and will surely lead to the downfall of DEC if 
    	it is not addressed.
    
    	Designers of products should be held at least partly responsible
    	for the products' maintainability and support, IMO. 
    
    	John 

re Note 1518.16 by NEWVAX::DOYLE:

>     	Answering/assisting the Noters isn't part of their primary job, or
>     	necessarily even counted as a "goodness" in their performance
>     	reviews.
  
        What follows doesn't answer the above problem directly, but
        it does provide a mechanism to support a team of people
        whose responsibility includes answering electronic support
        queries (posted on behalf of Geoff Bock).

        Bob
        -------------------------------
    Mark Ackerman, a researcher at the Center for Coordination Science at
    MIT, is looking for a group of users within Digital concerned with the
    technical issues around X-Windows, to participate in his research on 
    ANSWER GARDEN.  Specifically he would like to organize a test site
    within Digital where users would try to use ANSWER GARDEN to 'discover'
    answers to commonly asked questions--and then communicate their
    experiences to him.  
    
    The details of Answer Garden are included in the attached memo. 
    Digital is supporting this research through our major corporate
    sponsorship of the Center.
    
    I am posting this note at Jake Vannoy's suggestion to see whether
    anybody working on DECwindows would be interested in participating in
    the Answer Garden study.  If you are, please either send mail to me or
    contact Mark directly.
    
    Geoffrey Bock
    Project Manager, Collaborative Systems
    OSAG Advanced Development
    ===================================================================
From:	DECWRL::"[email protected]" 31-MAY-1991 17:07:56.01
To:	[email protected] 
CC:	
Subj:	Answer Garden 

 
Two of the considerable problems in using X are finding a starting
point when learning X initially and understanding the site dependencies
in using X. Net news has a early continuous flow of similar, naive
questions.  Users, even in research and development laboratories, have
difficulty in distinguishing MIT releases from vendor releases, locating
source materials at their site, knowing about bug fixes, and finding the
proper people to ask.
 
The objective of this project is to design and develop an
information tool that will alleviate these problems.  It is our
conjecture that the same 100 or 500 or 1000 questions are asked by most
naive users.  A semi-structured database of these questions and answers
would be of considerable help.
 
Answer Garden provides an easy way of constructing and viewing
branching networks of semi-structured text items.  Often, an efficient
branching network can be constructed retrospectively by someone
familiar with an area.  Users would benefit from having an expert
organize the information for them.  As the information needs of a
group become more obvious, a well-constructed branching network of
multiple choice questions that would guide the user quickly to the
specific answer to his question can be constructed.
 
Since any node can be active, if the question has not previously
been answered, the node can ask a few questions of the user and point
them towards the person who specializes in that kind of question.  In
many groups, just knowing the right person of whom to ask questions is
very useful.
 
In a similar manner, nodes in the network can be constructed actively,
from files or structured databases.  Organizations can use this
mechanism to publish source information availabilities, source
information locations, and the like.
 
One of the appealing properties of such a system is that it can
grow "organically" with well-honed branching networks being developed
for heavily used and well-understood parts of the system and ad hoc
networks growing up as needed in lightly used or "frontier" areas.
 
If the user does not find the answer to his question, he can tell the
system so at any point.  The user sends his question by e-mail to the
proper expert for the inquiry.  The expert can then mail back his
response, and if he thinks the question is a common one, places the
node into the answer database. In general, asking questions and
answering them is quite easy, allowing the answer database to grow easily.
 
The sample implementation of the Answer Garden is in C under Unix
using the X Window System.  It runs under the Motif Window Manager as
well as others.  The sample database is about the X Window System.
 
Answer Garden is currently in alpha release.  It will be placed in
research sites by June 15th.  These research sites will "grow" the
answer database by asking questions.  The staff members of the X
Consortium, as well as other expert volunteers, will answer the
questions.  The resulting information database and system will be
available on the MIT X Contrib tape.  For groups not yet totally
proficient in X, this is an easy way to tap X expertise.
 
 
 
 
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Subject: Answer Garden
Date: Fri, 31 May 91 16:57:22 EDT

>    Otherwise what does an employee say to a customer besides "I entered
>    your question into a VAX Notes Conference, and there's been no
>    response, but that can be expected, because no one is committed to
>    answer questions entered there."
    
	Welcome to the Customer Support Center's way of doing
	business !

	Our options are ( for most products ):

	1) The manual
	2) Notes
	3) Local office referral / CSSE referral ( critical only )

	If it's not in Notes, or a Notes query does not produce
	a response, we must simply elevate it.

	We have NO QUERY SUPPORT from Engineering.  In fact,
	the lowest common level of management that Software
	Engineering and Customer Support have appears to be
	either Jack Smith or Ken Olsen.

	When we occasionally submit queries to CSSE via it's
	"supported" path, we get back automated replies that say
	something like:

	"CSSE handles multiple problems.  Our priorities are:
		1) Critical field referrals,
		2) Software Performance Reports ( SPRs ), and
		3) Queries.
	We'll respond as soon as possible."

	This is usually the last we hear of the problem.

	So, we remain the "red-headed stepchild" here at the CSCs.

	DELTA submissions to management about this problem have
	resulted in "We're going to do more of what we're doing
	now" sorts of responses.....

	Merrily riding the train to nowhere,

	Steve H  

    re: .20  ("rumor" of a charge to call the CSC)
    
    In our district we have received multiple copies of a memo from US mgmt
    stating that the cost is real.  I believe the memos date back before
    implementation (which was supposed to be in March or April, I believe).
    I have no idea if these chargebacks are occurring (but, I must assume
    that they are).
    
    If you'd like a copy of the memo, send me mail.
    
    -- Russ Pavlicek

    
    
    I think Steve in .24  may have simplified the CSC's role/resources in
    problem solving. The way things gets done varies from product group to
    product group.
    
    My group (different from Steve's) has a lot of informal connections
    with our different engineering groups. Plus we have a lot of tools to
    help us isolate a problem. Plus we have many years of experience in the
    product, and can often give a good answer from our knowledge/past
    calls. We elevate very few calls to CSSE/Engineering, and many of our
    answers come from experience as well as notesfiles. It helps we work
    with some great engineers who really respond in the notesfiles of
    course (special pat to the rdb folks, and I'm not brown-nosing)
    
    simon

    re: .26, .24
    
    I don't know about Rdb specifically, but it is my understanding that
    there is a lot of difference between product development groups in the
    efficiency with with they interface to the support people in the CSCs.
    
    I recently got an "attaboy" from my supervisor because of the work I've
    done in maintaining contact between my group and the Colorado Springs CSC.
        John Sauter

	No offense, Simon, but your answer about the many informal
	resources your team uses just delineates the problem better!

	Engineering group A has great guys, great cooperation with
	support and the field.  Super.  Someone in a bind can call
	Joe in group A and get a quick answer.

	But engineering group B isolates itself.  It keeps support,
	the field, and the customer at arms length.  Call them,
	or post a query in Notes, and you're liable to get "This
	isn't the proper forum !" squeals.

	Doesn't this sound like the wrong way to do business ? Or shall
	we all just keep to ourselves, stay within the little
	ruts defined for us, and go broke - by the book ?

	Steve H

 Many notes conferences are automatically added/updated to STARS databases
and can be accessed via STARS. This gives _excellent_ results and has been
a major problem-solving tool for me. 

 I suggest that you contact the owner of the notes conference and ask them
if they know of a world-readable STARS database of that notes conference. If
the moderators don't know, perhaps you might try entering a note in that
conference.

 Cheers,
-Tom