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Making Changes to an IT Business?
everythingeverything asks: "Recently the IT development company I work for has undergone many changes, mostly focused on the streamlining of the development teams. Three people have recently been laid off, and massive pressure is being exerted on myself and my colleagues to develop more efficiently and delivery bug-free code. This is great - very positive changes. However it's blatantly obvious to many of my workmates that the sales and accounts team are not meeting their end of the bargain. They consistently oversell our services, write incomplete and inaccurate project specifications, set deadlines and budgets without consulting a TA or a developer, and frequently give in to clients when they want to change the spec halfway through. Management have agreed that there are problems and we have given them detailed research and documented solutions, but nothing happens. How have other employees in similar organisations brought about an effective, non-hostile and mutually beneficial resolution to the problem?"
Perhaps the best model for an IT company is an old fashioned one -- Start small, don't spend money you don't have, and try to keep your customers happy. If you try to go at breakneck development speeds on a skeleton crew, you wind up overextending the company, becoming unstable, and then falling apart after a few bad quarters.
Slow and low -- that is the tempo.
Got Rhinos?
The only reason they get away with this is the the uppermanagement has let this happen. Your boss should be standing up for you, your projects, and your teams outlook. If you have problems with the salesmen the way you say, you should get them all in a room with everyone involved and figure out who is saying "you guys do this". Why on earth would uppermanagement want to saddle down the salemen, when they sell something and you guys are on salary? If you don't get overtime and someone is making unrealistic goals for you who cares. Not uppermanagement, they are all for the slave labor bit. Sounds to me your in a job that is taking advantage of you, get a backbone, get gone, or bring it to boil. People use people because they don't say anything or standup for themselves. Your scared you might be over payed, or would have trouble finding a job if you got fired. Figure out which it is, face it, and move on.
I say this as a spinless jellyfish that is in the same boat. I recently got a backbone, had it snapped and handed back to me.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
>and frequently give in to clients when they
want to change the spec halfway through.
If they are smart they have a clause in the contract for a "change order"
and bill for it.
When I was freelancer , a poorly written spec and a change order clause
was like the client forcing you to take extra money.
If you were an AC asking this question I would have bet money you were someone I worked with.
I feel for ya, man. I really do.
Software Wars
i actually really liked the consultant... probably because he ended up telling the owners what I'd been telling them for months (the obvious problems mentioned above). everyone was pretty pumped up for a change.
three days later we were all called to a meeting where it was explained to us that "now that all our past problems have been solved...". i was baffled... we hadn't actually implemented anything the consultant had proposed, we merely talked about it. i stood up and said "I don't understand. What have we done to fix the stuff we've been talking about?" to which I got stares and bewilderment. Everyone was thinking the same thing (several folks told me afterwards), but I was the only one with the balls to actually say it.
I was fired within a week for my "attitude problem".
my point is -- real change is hard; 90% of folks would rather just talk about hard stuff than actually do it to improve their situation. don't settle for any Mickey Mouse shit. good luck! :)
Yes, those first few conversations the sales people have with your clients are part of the design stage. What it took in our company was a discussion with upper management of past failures, with specific examples, cost, etc of where this stuff bit you guys on the ass. Take time to make your case water-tight...and don't focus on INDIVIDUALS that hurt the business process. Focus on where the business process hurt the team.
You've already got 1/2 the answer there yourself. You've got a good idea of the things that typically go wrong. Now, what can you do to make them typically go right? Of course, there are ALWAYS going to be cases where the client is just a "bad client". You may be making profit on those clients in your books...but it may be "bad profit". Consider not doing work with them again if you (collectively) have made every effort to reign them in. And *always always always* have "post-mortem" team discussions at the close of *ALL* projects to discuss successes, failures, and areas of mediocrity. Again, don't focus on the individuals that failed, if at all possible...focus on the process that failed.
And finally, you think upper management only cares about $$$'s? You're right. So put it into terms they can understand. While they probably aren't as technically adept as you would want, they're also probably not TOTALLY clueless. If you can show, on their terms, where your business process needs help, you've crossed the first hurdle. Show them specifically how much money they lost in cases where salespeople oversold, or were unable to filter unreasonable changes mid-way through the development process. Just don't start such a conversation without also having some ideas on how to fix things.
You know, I know you're an AC...and maybe you're trolling...but I'll bite. People these days jump ship too quickly. Change is frustrating, and difficult to implement...but for the few of us that can actually see the failures in business processes, it's a waste to just quit. It does nothing to help the company, or the industry.
If you like your job enough and the people you work with, my advice is to try to make things better.