Conference 7.286::digital

    Todd, as a Sales support specialist who do occasional customer
    training, I have to agree with you 120%. It is strange that while it is
    quite clear to all of us at the grassroot what is wrong and needs
    changing, and while management apparently understands the problem and
    the suggested actions (while they're being shoved down their neck),
    nothing happens afterwards.
    
    Sorry to see you go, best of luck and godspeed.

    
    Todd,
    
    As a fellow breakfast club member, I'm sorry to see you go, but your
    going to a first class company. Good luck in your new position and I'll
    see you before you leave.
    
    Mark

    	Is it just me or are others sick and tired of reading stuff like
    .0? It's one thing for someone who got TFSO to bid farewell but quite
    another for someone who's quitting to give us the requisite bull about
    why he/she is leaving and "somebody turn out the lights". This company
    will do just fine despite what people who are quitting have to say.
    
    Ken

    Glad to see someone is saying it stratight about those damn Student
    Opinion Forms. For years we have had whole groups of managers collecting
    those forms and writing reports to show what a fine job while they were
    doing. Student opinion is about the least useful factor in determining
    course value.
    
    Keep those heads firmly in the sand, looking at the real truth is much
    to scary.
    
    Sorry to see another good person leaving DEC.

>>    	Is it just me or are others sick and tired of reading stuff like
>>    .0? 
    
    
    Ken, it's just you.  As someone who is a former schoolteacher (and now
    teaches for digital), it infuriates me to see people who have this
    "If you don't like it get out, but shut up about it" attitude.
    
    Instead of complaining that the message doesn't make you feel fuzzy
    about the company, take a look at WHAT is being said.  It is not an
    "I'm leaving, so up yours"; it's an "I need to go, but here's why."
    
    While, to the best of my recollection, I have never met Todd, I have
    dealt with him, and he cares about the company more than someone with 
    a head-in-the-sand, we'll-survive attitude does.
    
    I've said it before, in another posting elsewhere, but there is only a 
    short distance separating  "If you don't like it get out" from "Where
    did everybody go?"  
    
    And it's getting shorter all the time.
    
    tom

re .0:  Good luck...

re .3:  I'm indifferent to the reasons people leave.  We hit a common theme
        a long time ago.  Thats what the little comma or 3 on your keypad is
        for...

re .5:  Where did everybody go ???  I only hope they went where they're happy.

Scott

.0>	Suggestions for EdServices:
.0>		3. Scrap the entire Course Development department and Course 
.0>			Development model. I believe these are major factors in 
.0>			why we are loosing customers as 80% of the current 
.0>			customer courses are substandard.
    
    Truly words of wisdom. The "I develop, you deliver" approach has never
    been and will never be the optimal model for Ed Services. That was true
    back in 1978, when I considered and dismissed a move from MRO Manufacturing
    Training (where we developed what we delivered) to Ed Services for that
    very reason. Course developers acquire the depth of knowledge necessary
    to deliver the material with style and confidence, to react to
    non-standard questions and to steer the course in a manner suited to
    the students at hand. The delivery-only instructor either never gets
    the opportunity to accumulate that depth of knowledge, so quality
    suffers, or "redevelops" the course, so productivity suffers. 
    
    The Student Opinion Form comment was a real nugget, too.
    

    RE: .03	Yep.. it's just you.

    
    	.0
    
    	finds a very strong echo even here in Asia - I'm with Digital
    	India and sadly watch some of our best people leave , things
    	just fall apart and people just talk.It wasn't this way couple of
    	years back - what can one do to be in the great place to work
        Digial used to be ? 
    
    	

    In .0 Todd says the following:
    
    >3. Scrap the entire Course Development department and Course
    >Development model. I believe these are major factors in why we are
    >loosing customers as 80% of the current customer courses are
    >substandard. The only way courses are currently able to succeed is for
    >the instructor to either heavily rewrite the materials, supplement the
    >materials or just not use the materials at all. Have the courses
    >written by the people who are actually going to be delivering the
    >class, and who know what really is important to the customer. 
    
     Back in March 91 I started note #1404 (What kind of technical training
    do you want), since I am a course developer who, like Todd, is
    concerned about this problem.  Much of the feedback we got from that
    note was read by course developers as well as higher level planning
    people who sent me mail commenting on it.  
    
    What I concluded was never, ever to write a course in a vacuum! If I
    cannot team with an instructor and a practitioner, I have a big problem
    and will probably write a useless course. I have always tried to find
    technical instructors and practitioners in the field and work closely
    with them on technical training.  Many of us who develop courses also 
    get out in the field with customers and teach as often as we can
    to get a sense of what the customers are asking for.
    
    I try to find people to design lab exercises who consult with our
    customers and who understand the real problems people come to classes
    to learn about.
    
    Now we have fewer and fewer instructors to work with, most of whom are
    on platform more than ever.  Last year a superb subject matter
    expert/instructor in the client/server (?!?) space was laid off, a
    month before the course she and I were teaming to write was due!  
    (Mine is usually not to reason why, but laying off someone highly 
    skilled in client/server and middleware made no sense to me at all!)
    
    Todd makes some good points, but I also think that he generalizes.  Many
    courses developers share his concerns, and work hard to write useful
    and realistic courses.  A few course developers and writers have
    traditionally seemed to want 9-5 jobs where they don't have to spend a
    lot of personal time keeping up technically.  I think the days where
    anyone has that luxury in this industry are quickly moving behind us.
    I think we have to take responsibility for setting individual technical
    goals and doing whatever it takes to become/remain current with what is
    happening in the industry, much as an engineer would.
    
    At the same time, it seems that much of the training that customers
    want is PC-based  as opposed to classroom and instructor based.  I
    think our training organization is well equipped to head in
    that direction, but it means that course developers need to take a lot
    of personal responsibility not only for keeping up with what's going on
    in the industry technically, but with leading edge training strategies
    and implementations.  
    
    Holly Hendricks
    
    

>>	"My department has gone from 21 instructors at it largest, 
>>	to what will be when I leave, 5." . . . "There are, at this
>>	moment, 7 layers of management above me."

	* Has, what is described above, happened to your group?
	* Does it seem that managers are escaping the ax?
	* Are there too many management layers between you and BP, 
		in your organization?

What would happen if the Senior Leadership Team, mandated the following:

	EVERY supervisor and manager must have at least 10 direct 
	reports, or layer consolidation (decentralization) MUST occur.


Surely a manager can lead ten employees.  Wouldn't this mandate place a 
magnifying glass on redundant managers and layers?  Wouldn't this eliminate 
the managers who create new titles and positions?

    A friend and former co-worked recently left Digital voluntarily and I
    found the following from her 'farewell memo' to be something worth
    sharing.
    
        ---------------------------------------------------------
    
    "...
    
    "First and foremost, I have some immediate opportunities I simply cannot
    pass up.  The overwhelming success of <project_name> has opened many doors
    for me, and it's time to see what's on the other side!  I need to take
    some of these exciting challenges and explore the rewards, and there is
    no better time than now.  At this point in my life and my career I have
    more passion and energy for my work than I ever have before.  Digital
    is so wrapped up in organizational issues that it cannot benefit fully
    from my energy.  I'd rather spend my energy fighting against the
    competition than internal politics.  The competition has our wagons
    circled, and all of our guns are aimed at each other!  And sadly, I
    have come to the conclusion that career growth in Digital is limited
    for those who reside outside of the New England area.  There is so much
    talent in the field - from people who know what our customers want and
    need - that is stifled by the mere fact that the individual does not
    reside in New England.  I hope this changes.
    
    ..."
    
        ---------------------------------------------------------
    
    I've always maintained that we were our own worst enemy.  It's not the
    competitors that are doing Digital in, it is Digital itself.  We have
    been drowning in our own red tape for years, and this person obviously
    feels that it is still a significant problem.  As do I.
    
    Steve

    re: .12
    
    I thought that the following part was just as important.  Note that
    the amount stated below is ~20% of the cost of the product.
    
    Bob
    
    "...
    Never in my career at Digital have I seen a project  receive such
    enthusiasm, hope and excitement - from our Business  Partners as well
    as the field - yet have so many attempts to  deliberately sabotage the
    program by a few self-serving individuals  protecting their turf!  If I
    could have had 1/10th of the negative  energy spent by those few
    individuals, to use toward the benefit of  channels.....(sigh)  [I can
    identify an indisputable $550K in direct  costs that this kind of
    behavior has cost the company.  At least that  much more has resulted
    indirectly...]"
    
    

re:.12, .13;
Well put.  The truth is that we're more like Bosnia than like a 
corporation.  This place is in open internal warfare.

I estimate that my business unit  spends about 80% of its time and 
effort fighting other internal groups or within itself.  That's all the 
managers are hired to do, and it's all many of them understand.  I 
suspect that the part of D.C. that I'm in isn't atypical, though it may be 
worse than some other business units.

I've recenly told my supervisor that I've figured out how to prioritize 
my time:

1)  Internal battles.  Gotta watch for arrows and shoot or be shot!
2)  Work coming from unofficial sources, customers, field, etc., 
without official requests.  This often helps Digital's bottom line.
Besides, if somebody outside the group seeks me out, they must 
know what I can do for them and we appreciate each other.
3) Work on my pet projects.
19) Work assigned via official channels via the nominal internal 
funding process.  In three years on this job nothing I've worked on 
for them has ever gotten implemented, so why bother?  They're too 
busy fighting, and will fight themselves and us if given the time.

And the saddest part is that our new senior-level VPs, who last year 
talked a good game and promised major changes, gave up and let 
the gooboos continue the fighting, unchecked, costing many 
millions of dollars a year.

    re: .14
    
    Interesting observations Fred.  I found this in fighting not really the
    case in SWS, but it appears to be derigeur (sp?) in engineering and
    certain other support organizations.  Most put up walls instead of
    trying to look around and see what really should be done.
    
    I think part of this comes from the funding process.  Each project
    appears to be a selling job to management and if your project is
    similar to another project, it seems as though it is easier and safer
    to compete than cooperate.  It's as though you need to constantly sell
    your project and denigrate similar projects to hold on to your little
    slice of the pie.  This is greatly reinforced by the continual
    downsizings.
    
    I suspect that if we could cooperate internally instead of competing,
    we'd be extremely profitable.  It's a big market, let's attack it and
    not each other.
    
    -tl
    

    re: .1 "if we would cooperate internally....."
    
    This is terribly logical, and absolutely must happen. But as Fred
    points out an incredible amount of time is going into infighting, most
    of it at the "troop" or grunt level. What we need is senior management
    which can set some clear directions, resolve these turf wars, and allow
    those folks who desperately want to to do real work get back to doing
    so! Seems so simple, but we're so far away.
    
    I was invited to be part of a technical working meeting yesterday.
    People from 5 different groups showed up. Ten minutes into the meeting
    you could feel the tension/anger in the room as people started staking
    out their turf. "You can't do that, that's our space". "We own that
    decision, not you", and other similar remarks. People made derogatory
    comments about the systems others in the room represented, questioned
    the right of people to be doing the work they were clearly in the midst
    of doing, and nothing was getting done. 
    
    From what I can see this is becoming the norm. They did talk about how
    their management needed to resolve this, but apparently they had
    already tried that, thought it had been fixed, and confusion still
    reigned.
    
    My wife runs her own small business, and I was telling her about this
    last night. Her comment was that (as we all know) "you guys are in big
    trouble. How long can you stay in business with all those people
    wasting their time, fighting each other, and not doing any real work?".
    Damn good question. 
    
    (BTW I left the meeting after an hour, told the person trying to run
    the meeting that we'd be glad to help, but she needed to get the space
    war resolved first, and I headed back to do some "real" work. I let my
    management know what was happening, and it's possible something will be
    done. But it may only be a small truce, rather than a lasting peace, in
    the ongoing internal battles)
    
    /thorgan

    Ed Demming died late last year...
    
    He'd preached what's in the last few notes for year and years.  Funny
    how it seems relevant now.
    
    tony

    re: .17
    
    | Funny how it seems relevant now.
    
    No it isn't.  It's a tragedy.  :-(
    
    Steve