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160

answers:

6

I'm in a bit of a sticky situation and was hoping some of you coders faced something similar.

I'm a system administrator for a certain software at a company. Due to stupid arrangement, I'm technically under the Marketing department with no affiliation to the IT help desk. Only reason this is important is that its difficult for me to explain coding and system process problems to marketing individuals who are also my bosses.

I've been recently asked to start providing a 30 min breakdown of my activities during the day. We already have a ticket system for users to follow. It's been stressed that it isn't to 'micro-manage' me, but to get insight into the breakdown of problems I'm spending time on.

This is f'ing annoying to do and I'm constantly having to push back with requests for capturing additional data simply cause there's no benefit from the data. They don't have a goal other then MORE DATA!

So how would I deal with gently negotiating myself out of this arrangement and talking with these people in the future.

PS Maybe I'm wrong and this is a perfectly reasonable request, let me know.

+4  A: 

I've been in this situation and we made sure that we also dillegently recorded the amount of time we spent doint the data recording. It's then pretty easy to create an Excel chart that shows the greatest single use of your time is the the time taken to record the use of your time. The cancelling of such management madness soon followed, hope the same is the case with you.

Another approach, although this is wholly negative and can cause more problems is to play dumb whilst getting heavily involved. Ask for training in what they want, suggest workshops, meetings, focus groups, get in touch with the decision makers, call meetings. Basically make it take up more time than its worth, the same people who are happy to waste your time, will guard their own like a wounded tiger. Of course if they can't make the meetings and training happen we'll have to spike the proposal until the man power is available to 'take it to the next level'.

MrTelly
+1  A: 

Every time I've experienced something like this, managers were emphatic that the data was important, but no one ever had time to look at it.

I advise that you do a reasonable job without driving yourself insane. You can probably get a roughly accurate picture of your day in 30 minute increments written down in 15 minutes.

After a week or 2 you will probably be able to get away with submitting the same breakdown for every day, because no one will have done more than glance at the first few.

RossFabricant
+4  A: 

Unfortunately, you may find yourself stuck in the proverbial zone between a rock and a hard place - as your managers may interpret your lack of willingness to log your time as evidence you're covering something up.

I'm in a similar situation, having to track my time pretty closely - what I do is have a dedicated notebook for this purpose alone.

  • Spiral bound (so it sits open cleanly)
  • Sits next to my mouse
  • ALL my time gets written down
  • NOTHING else goes in that notebook
  • Each day gets sumarised into different kinds of activities for reporting

When I go to meetings, I use a separate notebook - and note the start/end times as a part of my meeting notes. Those then get copied into my timebook when I get back to my desk.

Once I got in the habit, wasn't too hard to maintain. The key was to keep it simple - a real notebook with a real pen that live together in the same place.

One final thought ...

Your managers may be wanting the data so they can put together the business case for more resources.

This happened to me several years ago when I was the sole Mac oriented IT guy - My managers request for an addition resource was knocked back because "Higher Management" couldn't see any evidence that I was overworked. So I started formally logging my overtime to build the case. Still didn't work, but that's another story.

Bevan
A: 

I tend to prefer the Office Space approach to these seemingly idiotic tasks. I put forth the minimum effort necessary to avoid being hassled. This seems like a good strategy in your case due to your place in the organization. The way you've described it implies that your opinion doesn't matter to the people above you. If that's true, then nothing you say or do will change anything. Your best bet then is to give them what they asked for, including a detailed record of how long it took you to record your time for them. If it really is useless, it'll go away on its own in due time.

You could also try the Wally Waiting Period. Do nothing for seven days and see what happens. You'd be surprised how fast these things can change or die off entirely.

Kristo
+2  A: 

Make your 30 min presentation about showing progress on the things these folks care about. You'll have to determine exactly what those things are, but if they're a marketing dept you can be sure money and customer satisfaction are on the list. Don't get into technical details about how you did something, just tell them what you did, what it cost (in time or money), and why it was a good thing to do.

Talk to them about numbers of new and closed tickets, and how you're preventing repeat tickets for the same issue. Show them that progress is being made on long-term efforts such as a planned hardware upgrade or new application roll-out.

For long-term work you need to announce expected milestone dates up ahead, then report that you met those dates. If you think you're going to miss a date, say so well before you actually miss it, explain what happened, and announce the new date. If you think you might make the date but you're not sure, just announce that it's "at risk", then say what you're doing to try to bring it in on time. If those efforts don't bring things back on schedule, announce that the date will not be met.

If you just let the date pass without comment it looks like you either forgot about the deadline or you're trying to hide a mistake. Either way is unprofessional and disrespectful of people who are relying on your work to do their own. If you're up front about it at least you give other people a heads-up in time for them to adjust their own schedules.

If they're asking for more "data", find out what they mean by "data". If these are marketing people they might be looking for cost analysis, or explanation about how the work benefits existing customers or helps drive new sales.

30 min every day sounds excessive for a status update. I'd see about getting that down to 30 min once or twice per week. The only way daily updates makes sense to me is if they really do want you to walk them through technical details, or if you're reporting on a large volume of work done by staff who report through you. If there are open critical issues maybe those should be reported daily, but I'd think you could get through that in 5 minutes, then get back to actually fixing them.

Also, see if you can get them to accept a written status report instead of verbal. It may seem like more work at first, but it's not really once you've done a few. If they go for that, make the report look "professional", but not a marketing brochure or a doctoral dissertation. Format it so someone can scan it quickly and get the main points right away, then drill down for more detail on certain items they really care about. Guidelines for Resumes might help with this part.

A chart showing decreases in defect counts or ticket turnaround times could be helpful. Obviously you want decrease in these numbers, but if you get an increase report that too, but be ready to explain the cause and tell how you're working to get the numbers back down. Categorize the different kinds of issues you work on and reporting separate counts/trends for the different categories.

A selling point of the written report is that you have a record of what was said for future reference. That is, if there are questions about an up-tick in a certain kind of ticket, you might be able to look back and show that the same thing happened the last two times you upgraded a certain app, that it was a temporary blip, and how long it took to get back to normal.

This might not replace a verbal update altogether, but you could limit the verbal update to high-priority issues, places where you need to bring in extra help, notification of starts or ends of major efforts, etc.

Also, tell them not only what you've completed, but what's coming next, and if possible when you expect the new items to finish. For example, if you said in this week's report that you're going to be upgrading a certain server next week, next week you should report that that was done, or explain why not. Over time you can show how you're planning your activities and following through on your plans in a timely manner.

EDIT: Reading the question again I think I may have misunderstood. Are they asking you to provide an accounting of what you were working on during each 30min period during the day? Or are they asking for a 30 min report on what you did during the whole day?

If they want "time accounting" in 30 min increments you can probably find some freeware to help track that. I don't use one myself, but I've heard of simple apps that are basically "stopwatches". You can set up timers for different tasks, and switch between them with a single click. They're mostly meant for tracking billable hours, but that almost seems like what they're asking for.

Clayton
+1  A: 

I'd talk to your managers. Ask them what goals and objectives they are expecting you to meet and ask them how they determine your effectiveness. Explain that keeping track of the time is doable and you're willing to comply (using any of the above mentioned techniques) but explain that you're uncertain this is what they're actually trying to achieve.

If someone is actively asking you to track your time and show you what you're doing it's usually a passive or veiled attempt at telling you they don't think you're doing your job. The best way to avoid this is to 1) make your efforts knonwn and 2) keep your superiors in the loop with open communication, dialogue, etc. Come talk to them about issues you're having or keep them CC'ed or BCC'ed on email correspondence throughout the day.

Just my two cents.

jerebear