News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Employee accused of skipping work for 15 years.

Re:Employee accused of skipping work for 15 years by bob33212 on Thursday April 22, 2021 @08:42AM (#26902071)
At least he wasn't slowing anyone down. I have been in several meetings with "Project Managers" who waste everyone's time asking for dates and estimates for their spreadsheet even after I have explained that this is an iterative process and we cannot expect to know in detail what tasks will be complete on which days and that we should give general updates with a rough ETA of completion every 2 weeks instead.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Employee accused of skipping work for 15 years by ABeeSea on Thursday April 22, 2021 @08:50AM (#26902146)
No one expects the date to be right. But you have to have a plan to iterate on and learn from. “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Employee accused of skipping work for 15 years by marcosdumay on Thursday April 22, 2021 @09:15AM (#26902374)
> No one expects the date to be right.

I have never seen this in practice. On my experience, every single person that pushes for estimations expects your date to be right.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Employee accused of skipping work for 15 years by ThalesX on Thursday April 22, 2021 @10:06AM (#26902904)
Oh, I've seen the other kind too! Whenever I have a direct manager, the estimation is expected to be right. Whenever I talk to a manager that is not directly tied to me, they always push the "no one expects the date to be right" narrative. I guess the set of managers that have not been my direct managers is what you are looking for!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Employee accused of skipping work for 15 years by bob33212 on Thursday April 22, 2021 @10:19AM (#26903045)
Then don't write any dates down. It is a basic communication skill to avoid sending out a spreadsheet with dates on it when you know those dates are not expected to be met. Someone reading it is going to assume that there is a problem if tasks are not completed by the date on the spreadsheet.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Employee accused of skipping work for 15 years by datavirtue on Thursday April 22, 2021 @05:10PM (#26908239)
Just give them a date so they shut up. Whatever date, is fine.
[ Parent | on HN ]