Status Reports

[sobrique]

For your information.
When we are very busy, regular status reports just waste my time and yours.
1 day a week 'reporting' means 20% of time is being wasted.

When I've got a workload that implies I need 3 weeks each week in order to keep up, (2 'full time' projects + day job) the day of reporting impacts all of them.

And yes, I'm aware there are enough hours in a week to do 3x. But I'm not going to.

Comments

[eithnepdb.livejournal.com]

Does it really take you a full day to report? If so perhaps your company needs to look at a more efficient way to get that info -

Because that's just unacceptable...20% indeed.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes they do.

We seem to have a rather large number of 'directors' for which read 'upper management' given the size of the organisation.

Who all want to know what's going on with which project, and arrange meetings to discuss progress regularly.

OK, so 20% was perhaps an exaggeration, but I know for sure my boss (team leader?) seems to spend most of his time reporting server consolidation, project progress, site deployments, that kind of thing.

It's depressing really, that there are people who exist only to read reports...

[eithnepdb.livejournal.com]

Well the importance of objective measurement cannot be underrated - afterall if all we went on was conjecture we'd be in a hell of a mess.

That being said - there is software that tracks such things (Rational Rose, Erwin or even something like Microsoft Project). I tend to use these tools so my staffers don't have to spend too much time keeping me uptodate on project status and they are free to do their real work ;)