Do any of you work for a big company where everyone above you wants Weekly Activity Reports/Metrics/Items Of Interest but they can't really ever figure out what they REALLY want?

This is an ongoing issue for me and my group for years now; we will be told to submit all weekly activity reports and metrics and what we have been working on and accomplishing so we will do that. Then they come back and say "don't give us a life story, we don't need to know every single thing you did, just the highlights". Then they'll come back a little bit later maybe weeks or months and tell us "you aren't submitting enough, we need metrics! Give us more!" Oh and don't use acronyms, spell it out, make it understandable to someone non-technical.

Rinse and repeat...rinse and repeat...

I honestly don't think they know WHAT they want, maybe just numbers and data to make pretty charts and PowerPoints for people above them?

It's almost gotten to where it's cutting into my workday just to gather and write this stuff up so maybe that will be an entry going forward? LOL

TPS reports, eh? Chyeah.... mmmkayyyyy

Sounds like a classic case of micromanaging.

Oh hell yeah!

Better is to provide the weekly metrics and get zero feedback - for over a year. Then get asked what you do.

WAR submission are due...

Yup, but it’s quarterly for now. I’ll do mine as I always have stacks, much of leading to efficiencies, cost savings, it’s a wide gamut. “Too much”. Then I will simply and hear “not enough.” It’s fucking idiotic. Middle management bean counter bullshit.

The good thing is makes for an easy review. I just cut and paste all that quarterly shit.

I have a report I have to do every week, I have no clue why I do it, no one can tell me why I do it or what it's used for. It takes me three hours a week. 7.5% of my work week doing data entry for hundreds of readings. You could pay a highschool kid to do it, it's pure data entry.

Then there are daily and weekly activity reports. Then there incident reports that need to be updated. Metrics and KPI, yeah we got some of that too.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Do any of you work for a big company where everyone above you wants Weekly Activity Reports/Metrics/Items Of Interest but they can't really ever figure out what they REALLY want?

Oh yeah. Back in the 90s, I worked for a large corporation.

Our team was required to prepare three different activity/status reports each week for our manager. It was pretty much the same information, but presented in different formats. (The reports seemed to disappear into a black hole, but boy you’d hear about it if your reports were late).

One day at our weekly staff meeting (another complete waste of time), our department manager announces that he’s going to some meeting and needs us all to prepare a report on what we’re currently working on.

I asked him what was wrong with the current reports.

What do you mean? he says.

I said we currently spend a couple of hours each week preparing three different activity/status reports. Doesn’t one or more of those reports have the information you need for your meeting? And, if they don’t, doesn’t it beg the question why we’re wasting our time preparing them at all?

He was so pissed, I thought he was going to lose it right there in the conference room.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
It takes me three hours a week. 7.5% of my work week …

One of our weekly reports had a field where you were supposed to plug in what percent of your time was spent on specific activities.

So, I created a line item: Creating and preparing weekly activity/status reports: 5-10%.

That triggered another meltdown.

Come up with a format, get their feedback, adjust, and get their agreement that's what you'll be using. If they decide later on that it's not what they want, then ask what changed from the time they approved it to when they changed their mind.

If my management wants something from me like a report, then I will make sure I understand what report is needed. After I understand what kind of report is needed then I execute a preliminary report and show it to them and confirm it is what they want. I'm sure you're high enough in the food chain to even ask what the intent / purpose of the report is.

I would also make sure management is aware how much the report is costing in terms of time and resources involved. "This is what it's going to take on an ongoing basis to provide this report for you. Are you sure you want to go ahead with this rather than spend my time on some other fire?" Maybe you'll get more resources or they'll modify the report requirements.

Don’t forget the meeting about the meeting. And town halls, then another one for your department, another one that your boss holds. It’s the trifecta of absolute bullshit.

 
This is one of the main reasons I declined the "Director of IT" job twice. Just leave me alone to work and be a good sysadmin.

The guys that worked for us complained that the Foremen " Weren't supporting us " ..Whatever that means . The Manager then required us to submit a weekly report of what we accomplished that week and what we did to " support " the crews . This kind of crap just helped nudge me towards retirement . In fact , my last day was a Thursday . My Supervisor kind of mentioned something about my report being due . I told him to keep checking his email .

quote:

Originally posted by Dzozer:
TPS reports, eh? Chyeah.... mmmkayyyyy

And don't forget the cover page!

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
The guys that worked for us complained that the Foremen " Weren't supporting us " ..Whatever that means . The Manager then required us to submit a weekly report of what we accomplished that week and what we did to " support " the crews . This kind of crap just helped nudge me towards retirement . In fact , my last day was a Thursday . My Supervisor kind of mentioned something about my report being due . I told him to keep checking his email .

After reading this, I thought back to years ago when I was working as a Manufacturing Engineer, taking a break from working R&D.

I got called into a high level meeting with my Manager, a number of other Managers, and my Manager's Director and of course, a woman supervisor who filed a complaint against me. The meeting was to assign blame and take action against me.

So the female supervisor stated her complaint, that I never supported her or her Assembly line.

My boss's boss asked if it was true and I said yes.

So he asked if I had anything to say in my defense.

I said yes, I'm not in charge of that line, Albert (another Manufacturing Engineer) is and I'm surprised that his boss doesn't know that.

The looks on my boss's and his boss's faces were great. No apology though, just "oh, we didn't know" and go back to work.

Self employed for many years. No meetings but plenty of hassle generally on the money side. My CPA just finished my taxes which should cover some worthwhile program for the less fortunate and his family of 13.

At a previous employer, a coworker was promoted to a different position. After several months of generating this one particular report for all levels of management, he asked his predecessor why it was done every month. His predecessor simply replied “because management wants it”. He arbitrarily decided to not complete one month. Not one single manager at any level asked about its whereabouts. He never generated it again. So many unknown wastes of time because someone in management says: “hey, I have an idea but we need this information”.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:

he meeting was to assign blame and take action against me.

So the female supervisor stated her complaint, that I never supported her or her Assembly line.

My boss's boss asked if it was true and I said yes.

So he asked if I had anything to say in my defense.

I said yes, I'm not in charge of that line, Albert (another Manufacturing Engineer) is and I'm surprised that his boss doesn't know that.

The looks on my boss's and his boss's faces were great. No apology though, just "oh, we didn't know" and go back to work.

That's hilarious except for the no apology part.