Second Sourcing, pt 2

The things I'm pretty good at the Mega-lo-corp are:

• getting the lay of the land quickly - why are we in this problem in the first place? How bad of shape are we in?
  
• figuring out the quirks of individuals - who are slackers, who are winners, who are whiners.
• finding out who to beg, cajole, or threaten towards a goal

When my manager asked me to help see if I could reduce this pile of problem tickets that were never going to get worked, I looked around and asked myself:

Why are these tickets piled up?

• They are overworked.
• They are not as critical as other problems.
• People have not gone back and figured out that this ticket is no longer a problem
• People don't want to say outright to another person, "Your problem is trivial and will never get worked."
• People mean to get to fixing them, and just never do.
• The person who opened the ticket left the company and the person who owns the ticket doesn't even remember it's on their list of problems to work.
• Although the person who cared about the problem is gone, the person who owns the ticket wants to keep the ticket open - sorta a technical post-it note so that when they get the time, they'll be reminded to work this problem in the future.

And why haven't they culled these non-working problem tickets in the past when management has sent email to department members asking them to clean house?

• More micromanagement from up above! - Delete note.
• We can't run our business like accountants. Not everything is correctly represented by a number. - Ignore note.
• Well, why should I have to do this when everyone else ignores these quarterly requests. - Ignore note.
• Oh yeah.....I'll get to this on a late Friday when work has slowed down. - Promise!
• Do you want me to work the real problems that everyone is screaming about or do you want me to clean house? You can't clone me, I can only do one of the two things. - Ignore note.
  
• Stupid, micromanaging managers. - Ignore note.
  

Then, you have to consider the manager's perspective:

• I keep sending these notes out once a quarter, and they give me the middle finger as a response.
• Why am I reduced to micromanaging my people? Why have I become a nag and a bean counter, the very people I detested when I was a programmer?
• How can I incent these people? I can't give them bonus money. How can I ask them to work just a few extra hours each week when I can get them to barely make their schedules for things that actually matter?

One thing I've learned in my years at the Mega-lo-corp is the art of calling the bluff. In this case, I already know that when I approach a grunt programmer and ask them to clean up their old tickets, the first response will be, "Ummm, sorry. Screw you, go talk to my manager." And if I go then talk to their manager, their response would be, "Ummm, sorry. You need to take this up with my boss." The secret is to always get the approval from the 2nd or 3rd tier manager first, then go visiting folks.

We had a....ummm..."quirky" 2nd tier manager. She was hired in from the outside by a buddy of hers, which was a rarity at the Mega-lo-corp. As a result, she thought outside of the box. Sometimes, waaaaay outside of the box. She would sometimes ask for the oddest request of her managers that made no sense whatsoever. I personally considered her flaky, but in this case a manager willing to think outside of the box was what I needed.

A few things I know about human nature which helped me in this case was:

• People are competitive deep down inside, regardless of what they say.
• People are don't want to be embarrassed publicly.
• People will always prefer the carrot to the stick - even if the carrot looks like a stick and the stick looks like a carrot.

My plan was this "new plan" that looked like all carrot, but would have competition built into it with a dose of public embarrassment. The plan:

• The entire second tier area would reduce it's outstanding, old problem tickets by 90%.
• Each first tier department would reduce their outstanding, old problem tickets by 90%.
• When the entire second tier area reached the 45% mark, each programmer in the second tier area would get a bonus, single personal day.
• When the entire second tier area reached the 90% mark, each programmer in the second tier area would get an additional bonus, single personal day.
• The first department to reach the 90% mark would be the only department that would gain a third bonus, single personal day.

Management had no money to give as bonuses. But what is embedded into a large monolithic company are these non-trackable "personal days" that they can grant. And a majority of the people in this area were fairly young, with only 2 weeks of vacation. The chance to add 3 extra days of vacation to your yearly tally was a nice carrot. And with emphasis on the first 2 bonus days as a result of the entire 2nd tier area, we were emphasizing working together as a team. But the "first to cross the finish line" bonus was used to stoke the competition needed to drive this.

I made up this plan, presented it to my manager, and then we got a 15 minute time slot with our 2nd tier manager. She listened, nodded her head, and then wanted to get on to other business.

That's all I needed.

Since my manager was obviously on board, I only had to go visit each first tier manager and explain this plan. As expected, most of them said, "Uhhh, ummm, okay I have to think about this. I'll have to see what Stephanie (second tier) thinks."

"Oh, that's easy. I already presented this to her and got the green light. She wants you us to implement this. So, can I put you down as yes? I can? Okay, then when is your next department meeting so I can come visit and explain this plan to your folks? Stephanie wants this done ASAP"

Fish in a barrel.