Saturday, February 24, 2007

The evils of short term incentives

I'm convinced that the current way that companies try to set incentive pay for employees based on short term and results based outcomes during the year is going to be their undoing. So often I see people being rewarded for putting in short term solutions that are going to cost the company a fortune in the long run due to the maintenance or support effort they will create.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Decisions made by people who don't understand technoloy

Recently I've found myself in the situation where many of my recent managers think they know much more than they actually do about technology. They go to meetings with their ill conceived assumptions and make major decisions without consulting any of the technical people. When the tech savvy people actually find out that a decision has been made, often it is too late to change it. It seems like a bad case of chinese whispers where the facts get distorted as they get passed up levels of management.

Restructures

Why is it that senior management always think they can fix everything with a restructure. If they just listened to the people on the ground they would know how to fix the underlying problems. Instead they go on their "off-site" retreats and work out restructures achieve absolutely nothing. Do they think that they will look weak if they listen to people who work for them or is it just sheer arrogance or stupidity?

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Are there any good software architects around?

Where do I start. Is it an impossible job to do, or are there just very few people with the right skills to call themselves solutions architects/software architects etc.

First Post

To maintain my sanity I have decided to records my thoughts and frustrations of working as a programmer for a large organistion in this blog. Hopefully it will help my mental health