Show and Tell
I remember back in kindergarden and elementary school, we did "show and tell". To this day I cannot fathom why we had to do that. I suppose it was to build public speaking skills. At this time in my life now, I would have *never* expected to have to start doing that again.
Ok, I've already mentioned that they've demoted me and placed a second level of management over me. With new management comes new management's collection of new ideas they think are the "right thing to fix all the problems". Well one of those is some kind of "stand up meeting" which is part of the Extreme Programming initiative. I'll talk about Extreme Programming in a moment.
"Stand up Meeting" is literally that. Everyone stands in a room and talks about what they did yesterday and announces what they will do today. In effect... show and tell. We all stand because its felt that will keep the meeting short. Feh.. given I can stand in my 501st biker scout costume for hours without sitting down I somehow think the effect of "standing to keep the meeting short" is lost on me. So far I'm not getting a benefit from the meetings and they are anything but short. Just a lovely way to stand around, drink coffee and waste a part of my work morning.
I could deal with it, if it made something, anything more efficient. So far its not accomplished what its advertised to do. Perhaps its because we're doing these *EVERY SINGLE DAY*!!
Now. Extreme Programming. I've read write up on it and had it described to me more than once. The concept is sorta sound but I've yet to see it put into practice well. New management here is trying to put some of it in practice here, but instead of increasing productivity its increasing the amount of meetings and red tape. Now instead of having a short design meeting then go implement the software.. its 4 or 5 repeated meetings over almost as many days, prototypes for a couple of weeks, then reports on the prototype/experiment results. After all that, the real work might begin. Seems like a safe approach right? Ok, now the process I just spoke about is for altering two functions in one file...
yeah.. efficiency.
Man I've *got* to get that next manuscript finished and into an agents' hands.
Ok, I've already mentioned that they've demoted me and placed a second level of management over me. With new management comes new management's collection of new ideas they think are the "right thing to fix all the problems". Well one of those is some kind of "stand up meeting" which is part of the Extreme Programming initiative. I'll talk about Extreme Programming in a moment.
"Stand up Meeting" is literally that. Everyone stands in a room and talks about what they did yesterday and announces what they will do today. In effect... show and tell. We all stand because its felt that will keep the meeting short. Feh.. given I can stand in my 501st biker scout costume for hours without sitting down I somehow think the effect of "standing to keep the meeting short" is lost on me. So far I'm not getting a benefit from the meetings and they are anything but short. Just a lovely way to stand around, drink coffee and waste a part of my work morning.
I could deal with it, if it made something, anything more efficient. So far its not accomplished what its advertised to do. Perhaps its because we're doing these *EVERY SINGLE DAY*!!
Now. Extreme Programming. I've read write up on it and had it described to me more than once. The concept is sorta sound but I've yet to see it put into practice well. New management here is trying to put some of it in practice here, but instead of increasing productivity its increasing the amount of meetings and red tape. Now instead of having a short design meeting then go implement the software.. its 4 or 5 repeated meetings over almost as many days, prototypes for a couple of weeks, then reports on the prototype/experiment results. After all that, the real work might begin. Seems like a safe approach right? Ok, now the process I just spoke about is for altering two functions in one file...
yeah.. efficiency.
Man I've *got* to get that next manuscript finished and into an agents' hands.
posted by Chris Ash | 7:53 AM
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