What a novel approach to project management!

VP running a large project called an status meeting for all team leads.  He asked each of the 20 people for their assessment of where the project is, on a scale of 1-to-10.  There were some of the traditional obligatory answers (e.g. "For effort, I'd say we are at a 20.  For progress...a 6").  Probably bears mentioning that there is no project plan so this may be the best way to judge where things stand (at least for reporting up the food chain).

Boulder
Friday, January 9, 2004

Were they all standing up in a circle?

Simon Lucy
Friday, January 9, 2004

It would have been better if done by secret ballot. Hand out 3x5 index cards and pencils and have everyone put down a number and then  discuss the aggregate result.

old_timer
Friday, January 9, 2004

LOL!

INCOHERENT ABBREVIATOR!
Friday, January 9, 2004

Did the VP have his sleeves rolled up?

Rick
Friday, January 9, 2004

For director/VP levels, I have always preffered a very concise reporting technique to them. It involves one of two responses to any questions

1. Happy face  :)
2. Sad face  :(

In fact, it is quite easy to get cards made up with these signals on them so you can easily flash them or make copies of them to preface whatever "data" you are submitting for approval.

m
Friday, January 9, 2004

m,
Now it's my turn to LOL!

Boulder
Friday, January 9, 2004

So who got voted off?

www.MarkTAW.com
Friday, January 9, 2004

I have a variation of the "smiley face/sad face" answering technique that involves either punching them in the face over and over, or not punching them in the face at all.

John Rose
Friday, January 9, 2004

You have to work smarter, not harder

pdq
Friday, January 9, 2004

Rick:

Hilarious!

Of course to be proper he probably should have started the meeting with his sleeves in the formal position and later rolled them up!

Name withheld out of cowardice
Friday, January 9, 2004

I once worked for one of the largest ISP's in the US, and there was a special website that senior management used to check on the progress of projects.  It was our responsibility to flag each project as Green, Yellow or Red.

Even wild alligators couldn't make us mark a project as Red.

Oren
Friday, January 9, 2004

>> (e.g. "For effort, I'd say we are at a 20.  For progress...a 6")

Of boy I could never bring myself to say B.S. like that.

I'll die a poor man.

Alex.ro
Friday, January 9, 2004

What was the client's opinion?

fool for python
Saturday, January 10, 2004

No, *this* would be a novel approach:

Put up a list of projects with letter codes. Then ask EVERYONE on the project to submit a slip of paper with the letter and a number 1-10, like "B 4"

This gets you two things:
1) A purely anonymous overview of how the projects are *really* running
2) Slips of paper for a game of battleship

Philo

Philo
Saturday, January 10, 2004

or Bingo

www.MarkTAW.com
Saturday, January 10, 2004

---"For effort, I'd say we are at a 20.  For progress...a 6"-----

The answer to that of course is "Welll, clearly you're expending much too much effort, on making much too little progress!"

Stephen Jones
Sunday, January 11, 2004

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