Timeline for Sales team keep on setting aggressive deadlines
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 17, 2016 at 12:46 | comment | added | David Espina | @iDevlop, there is no evidence of low morale or degraded performance for a work week over 40 hours. Forty hours was not introduced as a legal work week based on science but rather politics. There are a whole host of exempt roles that consistently work well over 40 hours, over 50 in many cases, without any adverse performance sequalae, including morale. | |
| May 17, 2016 at 10:22 | comment | added | iDevlop | Overtime is bad resource management. "Your inability to plan is not my problem". I highly agree that pressure IS good. But constant/frequent overtime requests (to people who do not wish it) is definitely poor resource management, and will end up in an opposite effect. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 15:35 | comment | added | David Espina | I don't think bobo2000 indicated they are having these problems as he said he "warned..." of problems. That suggests a prediction, not issue reporting, right? I am trying to get people to see this problem in a different way. I think there are other factors to analyze that is NOT labor friendly on the surface. Clearly I will get dinged for this but I don't think I am wrong. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 15:30 | comment | added | Marv Mills | @DavidEspina You may not have intended it to read that way but that is how it read to me because, I guess, instead of commenting on the requested coping strategies you seem to be saying that this pressure is healthy and the team should not be having the problems they are demonstrably having. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 15:23 | comment | added | David Espina | My final comment:: as a leader, you are obligated to push your team to its sustainable limits, eeking out every piece of value you can for every $ you spend. You know you're there when your metrics degrade and cannot recover without a material change in your delivery model, i.e., team can no longer adapt. Pushing people to their limits is not a morale degrader but could actually boost it. If morale drops, something else is wrong. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 15:12 | comment | added | David Espina | Maybe use rate of defect identification or scenario failure over time, like a trend. Your cumulative flow will show bottlenecks based on capacity; you can show pre and post using that graphic. You can show an inability to resolve Sev 1 and 2 defects pre and post. And what about employee turnover? If morale is dropping, that should increase. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 15:10 | comment | added | David Espina | @bobo2000, sure, that's a contractual issue, not a human capacity issue. Pens down at 40, end of story. But that's evidence that the team is far away from capacity. In the US, developers are an exempt role, which means they're salary and work well above 40 hours not "paid." | |
| May 13, 2016 at 15:09 | comment | added | bobo2000 | @DavidEspina what do you use to measure pre and post defect density levels? I use a cumulative flow diagram to measure overall progress btw | |
| May 13, 2016 at 15:07 | comment | added | bobo2000 | @DavidEspina to be fair on the team they are not paid to work overtime, so if the work exceeds 40 hours a week it is unethical for the sales team to expect the team to work beyond their contracted hours. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 14:55 | comment | added | David Espina | There is no hint of 'just suck it up' in my answer. I am suggesting to analyze this situation like a leader. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 14:50 | comment | added | David Espina | @MarvMills, the OP supplied no metrics. We don't know the before level of performance or the after level. We don't know his pre and post defect density values. It appears the aggressive deadlines are just now coming in and his team is just now starting to exceed a forty-hour work week. The only evidence we have is the team is complaining. | |
| May 13, 2016 at 14:32 | comment | added | Marv Mills | I am not the DV, but I don't feel this is a good answer as it boils down to "suck it up". Whilst I would agree with the principles of driving innovation through pressure you are espousing, I got a distinct feeling that is not what the OP is describing. His has all the hallmarks of unrelenting and crushing pressure on a team, which many high-level managers consider to be "sweating the assets". The problem is that working a creative field where, after a point, you cannot be more productive by "working smarter", crushing pressure is exactly that; crushing. The OP is asking for coping strategies | |
| May 13, 2016 at 11:47 | history | answered | David Espina | CC BY-SA 3.0 |