Crisis non management
Kevin Vandever provides an all too familiar list of the way in which management really doesn’t help when the shit hits the fan.
One major roadblock is to schedule a conference call or a meeting to discuss the situation. This might be helpful to some extent, but in most cases it turns into a chance for upper management to pontificate and state the obvious to those in the trenches trying to solve the problem.
Yep. Been there. This one is particularly annoying when the issue is one that is very straightforward to resolve but has a very large impact on the business. In cases like this, I find myself spending more time explaining what I intend to do - to non technical people, who really don’t understand the explanation - than I spend actually fixing the issue.
This becomes even worse when you have a “process orientated” manager in the hierarchy. It then becomes impossible to do anything until all eventualities have been documented, signed and approved and all arses are covered.
is also a time when the importance of the issue is explained to the group, which also falls into the stating the obvious category, but I give it its own billing because it so frustrating to those trying to solve the issue. The problem is that many times, the folks in the trenches already know what steps need to be taken to troubleshoot or solve an issue and most of the time they also know the graveness of the situation.
Of course, the process orientated guy seems unable to believe that anyone in his department might realise an issue might be important until it’s been logged, classified and prioritised in his issue tracking application of choice - preferably both of them.
The long-winded meeting usually serves to waste the time of those who need to dig in and it also frustrates them so that when they do get back to the job at hand, they do so with a less than positive attitude.
No comment.
Another favourite roadblock to productivity placed by management during a crisis is the constant need for status updates.
This one is relatively easy to deal with. If you promise to provide an update - preferably by email (managers like having stuff in writing) - by a fixed time, you can reasonably ignore all requests for updates.
The trick, of course, is to promise to provide an update about an hour after you expect to have fixed the problem. That way, not only do you satisfy the need for status, but you also get to look like a hero for fixing the issue faster than expected.
Having said that, I am reminded of the time that our email stopped working. The infrastructure group sent out a status update every hour, on the hour… by email.
Of course, managers need to know what is going on - if only so that they can effectively keep things clear for the support people so they can do their job - but there is nothing that they can do directly to help solve a critical issue. I’ve seen a number of managers - at various levels - who would do well to recognise this.
Tuesday 31 May 2005 | Paul | The Pit
