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Like herding cats

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I’ve been assigned to manage a guy who’s got a history of being disorganized and of taking longer than expected (read: billing lots of hours) to complete tasks. Let me emphasize that I do not think he’s “padding” his hours, just has a hard time getting focused and tends to wander. This man is extremely bright and personable and technically excellent and I like working with him –but it’s been made clear to me that I’m in charge of reining him in and making sure he sticks to allocated hours and just does what’s asked for (he tends to go above and beyond, but there’s no time/budget for extras on this project). It’s only been a week and already he’s done some work that’s outside the scope. Advice on keeping him on track?

Topic

This may be the toughest assignment you’ve ever had.

In reply to Like herding cats

Apparently, up until now no one has had the decency to let him know that his work is not satisfactory by one important measure: time management. You are on the spot. Lucky you.

What you need to do is develop an extremely detailed list of what is and is not expected on this project, and remind him that the company will not be able to bill their clients for deliverables that were not ordered.

I don’t know how your payroll system works. Can he charge the company for time that they can’t bill out? Or can you refuse to sign off on his time report if it includes unauthorized activities?

How long has he been there? Has this behavior pattern become established and tacitly accepted? Or have other people tried to deal with it but failed?

If someone is putting you on the spot and asking you do accomplish something that no one else has ever been able to do, it’s either a “rite of passage” — a way of judging YOU by how well you survive it — or it’s the result of some executive deciding that enough is enough and you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Do you have a good relationship with your own superiors and colleagues? Can you frankly ask them how this situation got so bad, how others have tried to fix it, and why they failed? That will give you a lot of clues as to what you might try that hasn’t been tried before, how much pushback you will get from a guy who may not even know that he’s not doing a perfect job, and how much support you’ll get from your superiors if this ends up being a conflict.

If the company is one of those that suddenly found itself in a more difficult economic position and simply has to find ways to cut expenses, you will probably get all the support you need to solve this problem. In that case, your skill will be measured by whether you can actually mentor this person into being a more valuable employee who can be kept on the payroll, or whether you leave the company no choice but to terminate a person who has done a lot of good work for them.

In a situation like this, I never hesitate to make an appointment with a professional: a psychotherapist or an industrial psychologist, someone I already know and trust who makes a career out of dealing with situations like this. It’s a hundred bucks or more of my own money, but it could save my job, or at least my own mental health. These people have seen and heard it all. You’d be surprised how in one single session they might give you a dozen ideas for approaching this problem. Just remember that they will NOT give you answers, but they will help you formulate the questions so you know how to find the answers for yourself.

This is a really tough assignment. You will need to take extraordinary measures to come out of it looking good and, perhaps more importantly, feeling good. Think as far “outside the box” as you can.

toughest assignment

In reply to This may be the toughest assignment you’ve ever had.

DCGuy is right on the money. But two things to may help you through. MOST IMPORTANT – do not let the HR department get into this one m- they’ll just cause more anxiety and confusion. And in order to keep this guy’s morale up (remember you are telling him his work is not up to scratch), get him to document these ‘added features’ he includes, and take these items that he is adding in through formal change management. You may get some approved, and who knows, maybe the original spec missed something.

Deliverable is the key

In reply to toughest assignment

When you give a contract to an enterprise, you specify what you want, what are the deliverable because you don’t want to pay for something you did not asked. In you enterprise, do the same, specify your needs and convert your needs to deliverable.

Thanks,

Serge Ayotte

Two Words to the Wise – Watch Out!

In reply to toughest assignment

A lot of good and positive advice has been presented here. So, I won’t regurgitate any of the tantilizing tidbits. I wiill add though that you should make sure that you are the only one with their hand in the mix. Some times unbeknownst to the mentoring party (you in this case), some other person in a supervisory capacity starts mucking about with a somewhat harmless and even fixable situation and then ends up making the matter worse. Your mentoring job would become even harder then; and perhaps cause the gentleman in question to become defensive, hurt and less productive, before he finally quits our is removed becasue of his now bad (defensive) reaction to all the “bullying.” So, my advice is to make sure that all your care and mentoring is not being undermined by some unknown meddler.

I WAS that guy

In reply to This may be the toughest assignment you’ve ever had.

For years I was allowed (with frequent chastisements)to “run free” with projects because the client was satisfied that the right person was handling the job. The supervisor was impressed with the final product and also did not want to create tension between the client and me. However, the client was often frustrated about time being used and would complain to the supervisor that “they” were the ones who had the problem.

I sought help from a psychiatrist about how this (and many, many, many other short-comings) were causing depression and affecting both my personal and business life. There was no easy “quick fix”, but I did find out that I suffered from ADHD (and always had. After prescribing the right medication I no longer created the problem by being distracted by ancillary issues somehow connected to the project and I was completing jobs more smoothly and ON TIME!

I was this guy also

In reply to I WAS that guy

I didn’t need to read too far in to the problem before I recognized the medical condition. Classic ADD/ADHD. Which is more common than you might think in IT workers. I got treatment, Strattera, the first non-stimulant ADD med, and the difference in focus is night and day – like getting glasses. If you think you might have this, and can get past it through diet, ‘mental discipline’ or anything else, take it from somebody who tried, it won’t happen. See a physician who knows this condition, and has experience with adults.

sounds like ADHD to me

In reply to I WAS that guy

Although it sounds like a classic case of ADHD, medical treatment and diagnosis is most likely out of your scope of influence as his employer. Although this may change his behavior, you can’t rely on that alone to solve your problem. Besides even with proper treatment you may not see improvement or change for weeks to come.

There are some steps you can take as an employer to compensate and possibly improve your guy. Some may or may not be practical based on how your company runs.

Teamwork. If possible, have him work with another person for whom time management is not an issue. The close interaction with this other person will allow him to use his co-worker’s clock to keep pace with the assigned tasks at hand.

Frequent spot checks. More easily said than done, by frequently checking in with him and going over the work plan with him, you are setting the clock and pace for the project. Not a full-blown review meeting every other day, but 10-15 minutes every week or biweekly if possible.

Work plan management with MS Project or comparable package. He may be able to keep his own clock in synch if he visually sees the timeline as it progresses through the project.

I have ADHD. I choose to combat it through non-medical means. I found that if I co-ordinated with my supervisor(s) and co workers using methods like these, I was able to keep myself on track and for the most part on time.

This could wind up being a very good thing for your company, or a very bad thing for you and this guy… it just depends on so many factors. Best of luck to you both!

“Like herding cats”

In reply to This may be the toughest assignment you’ve ever had.

Instead of imediately over reacting and safe guarding your possition with your “superiors”… why not just have a normal talk with the guy, about the plain facts of his doing unasked for work and therefore doing things, however “neat” and “smart” in design, they are just that unasked for and UNPAID for.
See what happens and take it from there

Do you even realize that YOU are reacting to this as if it is already a BIG problem while you just don’t know?

If this person is not willing to co operate do you really believe throwing some smart ass phrases are going to help?

Instead of immediately running to some “professional” when all you need to do is just talk

“Like herding cats”

In reply to This may be the toughest assignment you’ve ever had.

In stead of imediately over reacting and safe guarding your possition with your “superiors”…

why not just (try to) have a normal talk with the guy, about the plain facts of his doing unasked for work and therefore doing things, however “neat” and “smart” in design, they are just that unasked, and UNPAID for.
See what happens and take it from there

Do you even realize that YOU are reacting to this as if it is already a BIG problem while you just don’t know?

If this person is not willing to co operate do you really believe throwing some smart ass phrases are going to help?

Instead of immediately running to some “professional” maybe, just maybe, all you need to do is just talk with the guy. Seems to me nobody wants to do unwanted, unnecessary and thus unpaid for work.

Pardon my english as I’m from Holland

What you DON’T know CAN hurt you!

In reply to This may be the toughest assignment you’ve ever had.

I’ve got to agree with DC Guy on this one up to a point. And with some of his critics.

At this point, you don’t have enough information:

About the envirionment –
Are you the first to try?
Is this a set up?
Have others failed?

About the developer –
Is there a physical reason for this behaviour?
Are they unaware of the effect of their behaviour?
Do they believe they’re doing what the client wants?

So your first step is going to be to gather information … on the environment, and on the problem. Once you understand the politics of the situation and the sources of the problem you can determine your next step. Which may involve going to a specialist for help, simply sitting down and talking or may involve micro-managing.

As a side-comment, be careful with your actions. If, in fact, this is a case of ADD/ADHD, it qualifies as a disability situation and may need to be dealt with appropriately (i.e. reasonable accommidation).

Glen Ford
Can Da Software
IS Project Management
Business Systems & Process Improvement

I agree with what I have so far

In reply to This may be the toughest assignment you’ve ever had.

I agree with DC_Guy and others.
1. Keep HR. out of it
2. Have him document his work
3. etc.

I’ve always had goo results by conversing with everyone on my team as to what they are working on, issues, goals for the day etc. This was down before work hour began and took about 15min to half an hour over a cup of coffee. Maybe this sort of thing would help — Again as DC_Guy and others said
1. Find out what he’s working on
2. Find out his issues
3. Set goals for him for the day
4. Remind of project goals and dead lines, milestones etc.
5. Let him know that he maybe going off on a tangent by doing things outside the project scope.
6. Let him know what deliverables he is responsible for and how they fit in with the team goals etc.

Just check on his progress in the morning before work hours or more if feel he’s not understanding his role and responsibilities then check more often at your convenience. Try not to bird dog him. He may be just missing direction of the team etc. for him to stay focused on responsibilities etc.

Pre-plan with him and set time-task goals

In reply to Like herding cats

.
Do it once a day, once a week, or whatever it takes. But somehow, get him to focus on what he needs to do, and ask him to assign an estimate of hours needed to complete it. And I’m not talking about the project in its entirety, but rather the small steps required to get there.

Identify and outline those “small steps”; establish a goal to complete each small step; and emphasize that he needs to stay focused on only those things that you and he outlined. Review the task-goal outline sheet (yes, it should be written down) once a day, once a week, or whatever it takes. It won’t be too long before a light will shine brightly on the real problem, and you can take whatever measures necessary. Or, you might get lucky, and by simply having a guide to work by, his time problems will correct themselves.

And have him log time only to plan tasks

In reply to Pre-plan with him and set time-task goals

I’ve found that the wanderers won’t stick to the plan unless you do the following:
– Create the plan, with detailed tasks (4 – 8 hours in duration works best in my experience)
– Define a specific deliverable for each task (so there can be no question about whether it has been done)
– Allow the employee to log time only against plan tasks (most people are reluctant to log only 20 hours a week, and they also don’t want to spend more time than estimated, so they’ll be forced to focus where they should)

Like herding cats

In reply to Like herding cats

To rein such staff, one of the method is to follow up and monitor closely. If he is disorganised, then you would have to provide him with the detailed tasks and activities to follow, with dates on each task. Every two days, you would have to follow up and discuss with him what he has done, and the scope as well.

Make him a part of the solution

In reply to Like herding cats

Everything that has been said is definitely right. It is important to have a clear list of tasks and review them regularly.

To solve any problem though, it must be understood. Does he know that there is a problem with the amount of time he takes?

If he thinks that what he does is what is required, and therefore doesn’t recognise the problem, wielding the big stick and making sure he sticks to times scales will only solve the problem for this one project.

Talk to him one to one, and get him to understand the importance of sticking to the specification and time scales. If you succeed with this it will not only solve the problem for this project, it will also set him on the right track for future projects.

This could take some doing depending what sort of person he is, but the rewards can be immense.

I have had very similar problems, and this approach has worked for me.

Good luck

You are so right….

In reply to Make him a part of the solution

I totally agree with you on this one. Getting the employee involved with the solution mostly always worked. I had a guy working for me who could not focus. I would set deadlines and give him a detailed list of tasks. Ultimately his inability to focus resulted in him being let go but at least he and I felt like we gave him a fair chance.

Effective communication works!

In reply to Make him a part of the solution

The other replies are nice but I must agree with this one. I myself have rec’d comments like this and all along I thought everyone was comfortable with my technical competency. Knowing clearly what is expected from you and having that communicated in a professional manner will help him to improve.
Also get feedback from him. He probably already recognizes that it?s a problem and may welcome suggestions to improve this area of his professional life.

Look at it completely

In reply to Like herding cats

1) Firstly, he may be right…

You need to sit down with him and let him know that there is an issue and get his side of the story. Also, explain that the best thing to do is for you two to work on this issue together, because in the end the success of the project is all that counts.

2) To ensure that he has responsibility, let him plan his work. He makes a list of things he needs to get done and when they will get done.

3) Finally, ensure that you monitor his tasks. If he cannot get them done right away or has issues, it is partly your responsibility to find resources who can fix it or re-plan and get back on track.

HTH

Do you want robots

In reply to Like herding cats

The first thing to consider is what you want from your staff and what you want from life. Human beings just aren’t efficient how ever many management courses you attend or so called scientific techniques you employ. This man could be the seed stock for your future. How many customers specify exactly waht they want do you give then a solution that fits their request or one that works. Which will enhance your company reputation. You will never change this chap you may force him to conform for a while but sooner or later he will break free. So decide to either use his particular skills in a creative way or suggest that yours is not the company for him.

Turn it upside down and it’s a strength

In reply to Do you want robots

I have to say that it sounds like the problem here is that the “problem” employee doesn’t have enough to do. If you try to squish him into a box he will eventualy rebel, and either cause trouble or leave. He’s clearly smart, and that can be a huge issue. From what you’ve said, you might be better off giving him a bigger sandbox to play in instead. When you have talent, it feels horrible not to use it.

What about asking him to be part of the team that talks to the client? If he goes into those meetings and actually hears what they want, he may automatically adjust. Or asking him to write an in-house training program? If I’m right, anything that gives him a big new complex task will probably help.

Good luck and remember to stay flexible as possible.

A Voice of Reason?

In reply to Do you want robots

Thank you.
It’s obvious that this person delivers results above and beyond what’s expected. Do we force every “genuis” to conform to what we’ve learned in the last decade of mindless seminars?
Let him create!

Robots and Reason

In reply to A Voice of Reason?

Sadly, this might actually be the case. Perhaps the conformist, robotic nature of your company culture simply isn’t the place for this guy.
I would much rather work as this employee does than simply “do what is asked” as if someone were pressing buttons on my console. Assuming that the in disease (AADD/ADHD, in this case) is the cause would be jumping to conclusions; especially now, when the majority of ADD/ADHD diagnoses in children are coming under serious scientific fire from the medical research community.

The simple truth may be that your guy simply finds no challenge or real satisfaction in the work assigned, and embellishes his work to maintain that element in his life; using it to add a personal flavor to everything he does.

There also may be a disconnect in the way he views the work and the result. The work and its quality is obviously important to him. Explaining the value of results and involving him in the rewards for timely completion of each project may help to focus his efforts.

BE CONSIDERATE TO AN INTELLIGENT PROFFESSIONAL

In reply to Like herding cats

ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT ALIKE. SOME WOULD LIKE TO DO A RESARCH BEFORE FINALISING A STRATEGY. IN PROFFESSION THERE IS NO FIXED SET OF RULES TO DO A JOB. DEFINE A JOB AND SEE THE RESULTS ON THE QUALITY OF OUTPUT, COMPLETENESS AND NOT JUST ON ADDITIONAL HOURS LOGGED.
HVP Urs, BEL, BANGALORE, INDIA

What kind of type is he?

In reply to Like herding cats

Hi

I think you have to realise what kind of type this person is. When you realise this you can then pint out the parts of the project that fit to his way of working.

If he’s the type that likes to think ahead and see new possiblities, you would have to slant the project showing him were these areas fit to his way of working.

The problem here is if he’s the type that doen’t like to, let’s say, documentate his work. Then you might have to walk him through it.

Regards
Terje

I’m that guy!

In reply to Like herding cats

I was that guy. Typically, I saw a whole bunch of things nobody else saw: hidden flaws waiting to arise, broken processes, poor documentation, hardware problems masquerading as software problems, or sometimes a novel idea.
I was in one organization in which I collected problem reports and loaded them into a three ring binder. I was promised that I could work on those problems when The Big Project was done. Of course, when The Big Project was done, I was laid off. I am told that the three ring binder is lost. And I am told that they encountered some problems I predicted.
Most people want to do a good job of whatever it is they are doing. So does this guy, as you yourself have noted “He tends to go above and beyond”. So it may very well be that he sees things nobody else sees, and that is his source of trouble.
Have you tried listening to him? Find out from him what he thinks is important. It may be that the assignments are more problematical than your estimates would suggest.
Also, you absolutely positively must be straight with this guy – if you lie, promise something you can’t deliver, or otherwise are less than honest, he will find out (extremely bright people tend to do that – read Dilbert!). If your core value is “we will deliver on time and under budget no matter what”, then he may very well decide that he just not a good fit for your organization. Frequently, very bright people have trouble with the concept of “good enough”.

But be careful. I’ve seen organizations that lost a key person and didn’t realize he was a key person until after he was gone. I’ve also seen organizations that got into trouble because they wanted “good enough”.

All good advice

In reply to I’m that guy!

Most of the other responses should help you reach your goal. I assume that your role in this case is as project manager or technical lead, right?
I would advise doing the following:
a) Talk to him about the issue as a colleague, not in a lecturing or superior way.
b) At each team meeting be sure to emphasize (not directed at anyone in particular) remaining on task an in scope.
c) Make yourself available to discuss technical challenges with anyone. Stop by your “challenge person” once or twice a day to see how he is doing. Ask what he is working on…if it in scope, ask how it is going and leave him to it (assuming he doesn’t ask for advice). If he is out of scope (or even heading there) remind him of the conversation you had in (a).
d) Either in team meetings or individually review project tasks accomplished, in progress, stopped for dependency, or slowed by challenges. Do this regularly. If anyone is out of scope, get them back…

The key then, is management and leadership. Managers know what their people are doing. They listen to the opinions of their people, and they immediately step in to resolve things that are wrong or headed that way, rather than letting them get so bad that correcting the problem is very difficult (the apparent error of your predecessor).

A Few Reasons

In reply to I’m that guy!

I tend to have the same affliction, and not just in the software field either. Two reasons that I tend to take more time than I should:
1. I’m always assigned to the clean-up batter team on projects after the ‘just-good-enough’ philosophy has garnered praise for the leaders, designers, architects, etc. and they have moved on to bigger and better things. Meanwhile the thing is plagued with problems, mostly minor in scope but major in quantity. What’s worse, the customer has now become involved and the company reputation is on the line. Very painful knowing how little extra up-front effort it would have taken to avoid the suituation.
2. Having changed jobs and careers, I feel each project is an education and I must gain as much knowledge and understanding as possible. If this was discouraged, I knew I was a throw-away resource.
3. Damn, that desire to do the right thing – always keeps getting in the way. Give the people what thay want: schlep it together, toss it over the fence, go home and mow the lawn. Toss as many band-aids on as required later and move on. Never look back.

Lots of Reasons

In reply to A Few Reasons

There are lots of reasons people take longer than they “should”. But the fact is that if you say you’re going to do something in x amount of hours, you better get it done in x amount of hours! As a programmer myself I know the desire to do things right — I’m a perfectionist. However, I also realize that I commit to the estimates I give. I try to do my very best with what time I have.

Don’t add features unless you’ve discussed them with your superiors. Even if you have the time to add features, you could introduce more work in the long run by adding things that weren’t requested (i.e., it’s just another thing that can go wrong and another thing you have to test).

You can be creative, do things right, and learn from what you do without wreaking havoc. Provide realistic estimates of your effort and communicate with your employer about what you’re doing and why. If you know you take longer because you want to do things your way, then estimate higher. This won’t mean you’re always going to love the end product, but you can rest easy knowing that you did your best and lived up to your commitments.

An overrun or a bad estimate?

In reply to Lots of Reasons

Scotty quadrupled his time estimates and always got things done early. My problem is pride – I think I can accomplish things faster than I really can, or I double- and triple-book my time, and what WERE good estimates for each project get pushed by the booking factor. I am sure that my wife and boss would be happier if I actually delivered fewer results but really did so when I said I would, rather then promising being late all of the time or not delivering at all.

For the issue at hand, it could be that (given this fellow’s skill and creativity) everyone really could live with the long timeframe IF the client *really does* get this fellow’s good product within that limit. If it is included in the budget, it isn’t an “overrun”.

Perhaps he may not have to modify his behavior as such, just the realism of his estimates (or the timeframes he is given).

YES, YES, YES!!! — ME, too!

In reply to I’m that guy!

I am also that girl! I agree 1,000% with Jeff’s post!!!

After twenty years in the this business, I have come to understand many things about how people work together in business relationships. That “troublesome” person may indeed see things no one else does, and indeed may be much better at estimating project effort than those who are currently performing the estimates. However, as a software architect I have been on the estimating side as well. Also, as an owner of a consulting firm I had been on the client management side of the equation. The real problems with this employee may not lie with the employee per se but with the client-contractor relationship itself, and/or the way your company is run, and/or the culture in which your company is emeshed.

Sometimes those in charge of estimating are not good at estimating, but sometimes they are. Sometimes estimators may not have the liberty of providing honest estimates if sales or client management is under intense competitive pressure (and bows to such). Sometimes the clients themselves have preconceived notions of effort and will not change their mind. In any of these cases, perhaps this employee is simply not a good fit for the environment. I agree that this employee (like myself, and Jim) may have a deep emotional problem with “just good enough” (believe you me, I’ve worked in the pre-eminent JGE organization in this country–not to mention any names–and I had an ENORMOUS problem with that concept). In the case where the problem is systemic, then the employee should seriously consider alternate employment (I no longer work for this particular company). Yes, that is a difficult situation to be in but I have never seen any other good alternative.

I am now putting together my own software company, allowing me to put my money where my mouth is (again) and run things my own way (again). Perhaps this is ultimately the best alternative for your employee as well.

Given my sympathies, I would be glad to help you coach this individual. Send them my e-mail address. My bias is to help them find a way to stay within your organization. One way of doing so is to get your employee directly involved with estimating and perhaps even sales efforts (I have seen this work very, very well). Give me a shout, and I can provide you with some pointers in this regard as well.

Good luck, and don’t be afraid to write (phlorgian@hotmail.com).

Nicole Tedesco
Software Architect

Re: I’m that guy

In reply to I’m that guy!

Points well put. While it does sound like the guy may have some form of ADD, it also sounds like this guy is trying to do the very best job he can and to create the very best products possible, not just something that is mediocre. It’s too bad the company is not trying to listen to his ideas and reasonings, I’d think the clients would be impressed if you went to them and said “hey, if we do it this way, these problems are going to happen, but if we do it this way you’ll get a better product” and then at least attempt to renegotiate with them. If your company can’t appreciate someone who takes pride in their work and wants to put out the best product possible then send the guy my way.

Errant Employee

In reply to Like herding cats

Most likely you are wrong person at the wrong time. Seems to me as if someone suddenly wokeup to the time overuns of timesheets. Also since you are talking about timesheets & billable hours, I think he is not a employee but a Contractor. If such is the case then you need to be doubly careful as there is usually a lot of politics involved.

As far as the errant employee is concerned, I think he is being underutilised. Without appearing to mention this, if you could ask him to do some extra work which is helpful & productive, that will go a long way.

Remember that you can not give just any work to such employees. You need to give something that he will take interest in. Or else he’ll get bored and you will be back to Square One.

A trick I used to do is to timeshare such employees with other projects if possible. That gave them variety and didn’t bore them to death. That seems to be the typical case with such Bright employees.

Along with all these carrots, comes the stick. Tell him those hours he is putting on the timesheet that are not productive work will not be signed. But please use it sparingly. Just make him aware that its there.

Lastly don’t even consider the option of terminating him. You will certainly lose a gem that just needs to be harnessed properly.

I’m there now!

In reply to Errant Employee

I agree that there needs to be a balance between getting things done and remembering that we are all people at the end of the day!

I am in a similar situation now … in my permanent role I have become disengaged by the fact that my skills are just not being used despite the fact that I have asked repeatedly for them to be used.

When I started this role I had a team that had a similar person and over the months through coaching and letting this person know and feel that they mattered and their opinions matter they have turned over many of their bad habits.

It is not an easy situation to be in and you need to gradually work out what the _real_ issue is.

Hope that helps.

Mark

The Other side

In reply to I’m there now!

For a person who is THE GUY like you, things can be very difficult. Since you are permanant employee, it will be little better as there is no weekly/hourly billing.

Still the demoralisation is omnipresent. You just have to live with it and remember it will pass too. Don’t get bogged down by it. You may get fed up and decide to leave as well, but remember these are difficult times for IT people next job may be hard to come by.

Have you thought… This is ME

In reply to Like herding cats

One key bit I think everyone is missing…. Look up an ADD/ADHD site. No, I am NOT suggesting drugs. I am suggesting the understanding and management tools there. Possibly — if you feel comfortable with it — over lunch sometime — suggest to the employee that he look this up, he might find some useful tools there.

For me, I realize this is my problem. When it gets out of hand, I sigh, and go back on Ritalin. The rest of the time I manage it. I use a timeline — if I keep note of what I did, when, it keeps me on task. Second, I have a planned task list. Not TOO detailed, as some have suggested — that gets back to the same problem. Third — I cheerfully keep notes of problems encountered. Sometimes they are ignored, and I know it. Sometimes they are implemented. Sometimes I don’t know. At least my manager periodically pats me on the back for them, and I minimize my wanting to fix them myself. Also… I truly do two things at a time better than only one.

Mostly, in realizing the problem, I keep a handle on it. And, my boss listens to me — when I start to stutter badly, she tells me — and I sigh and grab hold of myself. It is our indicator.

Excellent!

In reply to Have you thought… This is ME

I love your post. Sounds like you have a wonderful working relationship. (Do you work at AT&T? I did when my boss there clued me into my AD/HD.)

LahTera

Like herding cats

In reply to Like herding cats

From personal experience I would get this employee to get medical treament as from the description he suffers from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) which has never been treated, with the correct treatment you will probably have one of the best employees out.
As I too suffer from ADD and have been a National Technical Support (staff of 23 reporting directly to me)and Branch Manager with 42 people working under me in the past (with no less than 4 “problem” employees) 3 of them came right with medical treatment.
Now I work for myself and sometimes still find it hard to concentrate because of the “problem”, think of this individual as a challenge not a problem, but a word of caution be too hard on him and he WILL rebel in such a way that it will be difficult to pin it on him.

Good luck with this one.

Regards

Perkunas

How to agree what’s in scope

In reply to Like herding cats

I reckon this guy is worth keeping, unless his wanderings are for ego-trips. Get him to identify his role models – some may be work-oriented role models and some may be goofing-off role models [=drinking buddies, spam writers, hackers]. Emphasize the work-oriented ones.

He is your apprentice. He is wandering into areas where there are few clear signposts, or if there are signposts, they are quite subtle. So, when he wanders off track, according to you, have a discussion with him on what’s in and what’s out of scope. Have a discussion, before he starts on a stage of a project, about the economic parameters.

Not a good idea to bawl him out for going the extra mile – get him to have a scratch pad so that the next time he feels he might be stepping out of scope, he can learn what triggers the need to go off on his own vs what triggers his asking you whether the track he’s on is correct.

If he’s into adding ‘features’, then he’s had too much imbibing at the marketing trough. He needs some guidance about production economics and production planning.

Like herding cats

In reply to Like herding cats

From personal experience I would get this employee to get medical treament as from the description he suffers from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) which has never been treated, with the correct treatment you will probably have one of the best employees out.
As I too suffer from ADD and have been a National Technical Support (staff of 23 reporting directly to me)and Branch Manager with 42 people working under me in the past (with no less than 4 “problem” employees) 3 of them came right with medical treatment.
Now I work for myself and sometimes still find it hard to concentrate because of the “problem”, think of this individual as a challenge not a problem, but a word of caution be too hard on him and he WILL rebel in such a way that it will be difficult to pin it on him.

Good luck with this one.

Regards

Perkunas

Its not Always ADD

In reply to Like herding cats

Not every person that has a short time span is a ADD person. Its just that some really brillient people do get bored by the repetetive tasks. It could even be that, he knows he can easily finish work at hand on time, hence diverting in other activities.

For you to mention it based on personal experience is one thing, but for GAMBOGE to detect it is different matter altogether. Bringing a psychiatrist in picture could just antagonise him in the worst possible way as you have correctly pointed out. Hence one needs to tackle this without involving Psychiatrists.

It’s Not Awlays ADD

In reply to Its not Always ADD

I don’t think I so much have ADD as I have HD. LOL! When I lost my job, they had to hire 3 people to continue on and they were actually downsizing the company.

Many folks with AD/HD can hyperfocus, and becoming bored easily is one of the telltale signs.

Unfortunately, no one truly understands this “AD/HD” condition. I find it has strengths and weaknesses, just as anyone has strengths and weaknesses.

If you can communicate adequately with him, perhaps you could build on the strengths and work on the weaknesses. (Something I wish more managers did! ;^))

LahTera

Like herding cats

In reply to Like herding cats

From personal experience I would get this employee to get medical treament as from the description he suffers from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) which has never been treated, with the correct treatment you will probably have one of the best employees out.
As I too suffer from ADD and have been a National Technical Support (staff of 23 reporting directly to me)and Branch Manager with 42 people working under me in the past (with no less than 4 “problem” employees) 3 of them came right with medical treatment.
Now I work for myself and sometimes still find it hard to concentrate because of the “problem”, think of this individual as a challenge not a problem, but a word of caution be too hard on him and he WILL rebel in such a way that it will be difficult to pin it on him.

Good luck with this one.

Regards

Perkunas

problematic employee

In reply to Like herding cats

From my own experience I can tell that such persons who otherwise are capable cannot focus continueously as they become restless and need a ‘break’. They have to be virtually ‘tied’ to the seat. I used to constantly talk to the employee time to time just to get his focus back on the problem.

Sound advice, but …

In reply to problematic employee

I like what I’m hearing, but some red flags went up for me:

1. Don’t involve HR – they’re the professions. Nothing is worse than having your efforts squelched because it is against company policy or worse, it is against the law. Involve them earlier rather than later, I say.

2. Medical Diagnoses – seems a slippery slope to me. Would it stand up in court that you *thought* an employee had ADD and he or she was ultimately let go? I don’t want to be the one on the stand trying to explain that while I don’t have a background in psychology, I was able to diagnose a metal disorder, and how it didn’t influence my decision to let the person go.

Something that has only briefly been mentioned: document, document, document. Good conversations, bad conversations, everything needs to be on paper. If this situation goes bad, and you are put on the stand, those records may save your job.

Mike Honeycutt

Defining Scope

In reply to Like herding cats

Why not on the next project get this ‘bright’ employee to write the scoping document, this will highlight if he is going that extra mile at the outset. In the event that this is not the case he will be responsible for staying within the scope of a document that he has written and owns and therefore accountable to.
Good luck

Who hired this person

In reply to Like herding cats

It seems to me that the person responsible for hiring
this person should take the responsibility for this task.
The original letter doesn’t say specifically but I got the
impression that this person was hired by one person
and then a second person was told to manage this
problem employee.

The original letter also doesn’t say specifically but gives
me the impression that this problem person is a temp/
consultant. If that’s the case then I would reexamine
the possibility that he is, in fact, padding his hours.
Remember that successful confidence artists have to be
friendly and personable in order to succeed.

The Big Picture

In reply to Like herding cats

“I’ve been assigned to manage a guy who’s got a history of being disorganized and of taking longer than expected (read: billing lots of hours) to complete tasks.” Nice to know but it is information only until proven on the current work and you need to be honest with the employee that you have this understanding, are looking for considerable improvement, will be there to assist if there are concerns and will be monitoring closely to ensure he settles into the project well.

“Let me emphasize that I do not think he’s “padding” his hours, just has a hard time getting focused and tends to wander.” So what are the facts as you understand them and have these been discussed along with the pros and cons associated with the project scope?”

“This man is extremely bright and personable and technically excellent and I like working with him –but it’s been made clear to me that I’m in charge of reining him in and making sure he sticks to allocated hours and just does what’s asked for (he tends to go above and beyond, but there’s no time/budget for extras on this project).” We appear to be discussing past history on other work rather than the facts on this project – are you being used to assist creatively with this guy because you have a good respect for his ability e.g. to help in his development or to provide the data to have him displaced based on project performance? Have you shared this information with him?”

“It’s only been a week and already he’s done some work that’s outside the scope. Advice on keeping him on track?” After a week you say the scope of the work is beyond requirement! Well – was the scope of the work adequatly defined and has this been tested with him to ensure his full underatanding? Were these project deliverables defined with potential roadblocks and deviations and have the implications of project hour excess been discussed with an agreed method of management – doesn’t sound like it (!) so there is a big opportunity right now to review, reinforce, provide guidelines and set immediate objectives followed by regular project meetings until the project becomes under control or it becomes clear to all concerned this person cannot mange in their present project role.

Good luck I have been there several times!

The solution is closer than you think.

In reply to Like herding cats

To start, I am this guy you speak of, I just work for a different company… I could quote several of your phrases from my own peer reviews.

The problem with people like me and your employee is that because management is confident with our skills we just get left to our own devices for far longer than many regular employees. Since you leave us with work that we obviously enjoy, we’re not complaining. Since we’re not complaining you tend to forget we’re around.. that’s where the mistake is made, you can’t leave guys like me alone for days and weeks at a time. We won’t come looking for you until the work is done, no matter how big or how small.

Now then I suppose the worst thing you can do is start buzzing around your problem guy constantly.

What worked for me was to work on smaller units of the same project, but still have (nearly) carte-blanche. Going out of scope on one unit of the project didn’t mean going I had strayed as far as going out of scope of a whole project. Also, small units can have a much clearer finishing point, this made the need for getting in contact with my manager built-in to accomplishing the work and THAT is how you can keep this guy on track. With regular contact comes a better rapport and suddenly this guy is telling you stuff like ‘I got a great idea…’ and the stuff that makes his work go beyond scope has become a discussion point and now you can help to curb some of those off-track ideas with his full agreement.

Just to repeat, although anyone would be confident to dish out a huge pile of work to this guy and just let him work through it, that is the real mistake. Guys like us don’t blink when expected to finish an entire project on our own, but that shifts the need to contact managers to the very end of the project (by the way, people like me *never* believe a project is really done).

It may take a couple of tries to find a unit of work that you’re both comfortable with. Go too small and this guy will think you’re dealing him a bad hand. Go too big and you’re back to the original problem in your posting.

Start slow then pick up pace

In reply to The solution is closer than you think.

I’ve worked with people like was mentioned above, in fact I also have adult ADD as some have said. However, this is not going to help in getting the task done. This one man I worked with always wanted to pursue his own agenda, never the team leaders’.

The best recommendation I can give is to start slow and then pick up the pace. What I mean is to start by giving him small, specific tasks. Do your best not to leave any ambiguity or he will stray from the task. If he strays from the task, you’ll need to reel him back in, by telling him “this is not what we need, we need …”. Be specific. If he doesn’t take notes, give him a notebook and tell him he needs to use it.

Once he has grasped this close supervision, loosen the reins a bit, yet be ready to pull him back in. After a while, you not only will have a valuable employee, but a dedicated one as well.

Good luck.

Power Play Persuing Particular Pussy

In reply to Like herding cats

I’ve read a considerable number of very fine responses to this problem child; many of them requiring months of your time to change his attitude. I’ve read of managers that will spend their own money to get psycoanalyzed to find a solution or spend scads of money to “straighten” his course in life, or learn methods to become more intuitive and even bringing in the voodoo practitioner!

What I havent seen is, perhaps, the only true road to the solution of this problem.

Ask him why he does it. Then ask him how we can fix it. Then do it.

Cheers and good luck!

Al

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Alfred Anthony Tantillo,
IDG – Internet Development Group
Old_Misc, LLC
307 Dogwood Lake Drive
Vicksburg, MS 39183-9290
http://www.idgus.net
atantillo@idgus.net
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Very succinctly put, and totally right

In reply to Power Play Persuing Particular Pussy

You can’t fix a problem untill you understand it.

Problems are always solved with more than one person.

Alfred is the MAN

In reply to Power Play Persuing Particular Pussy

Not to dis any of the other responses, because they are for the most part well thought out and helpful, but Alfred just hit it right on the head. The real life solution may take a bit more time to play out, but such an obvious response is simply brilliant.
I beleive that we sometimes overthink a problem instead of looking for the simple solution. Thanks Alfred!

The “problem” might not be the employee

In reply to Power Play Persuing Particular Pussy

I begin by saying I do not have the time to give this reply and subject the deserved attention… but I hope I can open another side of the issue.

1) Most people, including one reply entitled “I’m the guy…” are identifying the employee as the problem to be addressed. This is a very complex management issue and my long experience in the industry tells me there are very few managers who are capable of recognizing neither what?s happening nor how to manage this situation.

2) ASSUMING you have a quality person and one who is not a hot-headed “Neanderthal”, you could have somebody with a personality and learning style that is different than the typical developer. The majority of developers are very analytical and high focused. Every development organization needs somebody who, in addition to being analytical, is able to see a bigger technical picture and the impact of something across components or functions.

?Ideaphoria? was my first thought while reading your description. Often confused with ?ADD?, ideaphoria is the native ability to quickly generate ideas (relevant and irrelevant). This is a great asset and curse for a technical person! Native abilities (aptitudes) some into play here. A person with very good or excellent analytical abilities can also have a greater ability to see how one thing relates to something very different and then is flooded with ideas that need to go somewhere. The flood of ideas can saturate the person?s analytical capabilities to a point of distraction. It takes a skilled manager (and organization) to recognize and constructively direct these attributes.

Knowing nothing about the person or the organization, my first instinct is to consider this a management learning curve and not an employee problem to be solved. There have been some good suggestions on the list, especially talking with this person about the issue and constructively organizing tasks in someway that serves the project schedule and the employees native styles. Boiling this down to an ? employee problem? to be addressed, measured, judged, and closed will be a very short term solution with very little positive long term benefit.

Many of my thought on the subject come from the usual Myers/Briggs world and the research of Johnson O?Connor at GE in the early 20th century and continued by the
The Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation.

Here are a few links, food for thought.

http://members.aol.com/jocrf19/index.html

This is one person?s insight? slog through the author?s history?
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/6109/6109.html

Wayne

Time management is the key

In reply to Like herding cats

Best advice I can give is for you to read “It’s about time” author is Ken Smith. He tells of consulting an engineer much like your charge. By working with both him and the boss he was able to teach both of them how to properly develop a time line for projects and determine the necessary task to complete them on time and within budget.

Time management versus constantly changing goals

In reply to Time management is the key

This situation does indeed demand effective communication and time management. In a similar situation where I work the crises de jour (real and unreal) continunually change the goals and objectives. Consequently, nothing is finished as the “boss” expects. Unfortunately the boss has no benchmark for the multiple tasks, so is in a constant state of dissatifaction with staff and processes. Until the boss has a “handle” on the tasks and the employee has communicated adequately with the boss, the cats continue to scatter. –a plate spinner

Salary vs Hourly

In reply to Like herding cats

Perhaps this employee came from a salaried position – do whatever in record time & add bells&whistles because THERE ARE NO BILLABLE HOURS, just results.

I am that guy too…

In reply to Like herding cats

Big mistake trying to mold him into what you want. The guy is brilliant, dedicated, does his best, and cares about the job. So you want to change him? Are you listening to what you are saying? Maybe you should remove those distractions that interfere with his productivity. Trying to force him into a rigid time slot will not work. He is going to be done when he is done, and not a minute sooner! Make his job easier, not harder. You have a rare gem and should protect it. I am betting he has little re-work and is probably the can-figure-out-anything guy, too.

Notice a Trend?

In reply to I am that guy too…

I have been reading through many of these responses as I too am that guy. I find the number of members of the same forum admitting to having ADD quite comforting as I have it too. Perhaps this prevelance indicates a relationship not previously identified. In any case trying to mold bright creative people into good enoughs is doomed to failure. Finding a way to build on their strengths and offset their weaknesses is a better way to keep the talent on board and productive. Teaming, removing distractions and eliminating misdirection can often help those that are challenged be more productive without attaching any negativity to someone that can and wants to contribute.

The nature of authority (what’s on your plate)

In reply to Like herding cats

I am one of these employees, mostly because the work is so much fun and I come up with new ideas. But here’s something that has helped me deal with being reined in.

I indeed come up with wonderful ideas, but the leadership of the company is being paid to (brace yourself) provide the *leadership*. MY job as a loyal subordinate (and I mean this quite sincerely) is to respectfully submit my ideas, and then let *them* make the decisions they’re paid to make. Maybe they’ll see it my way (and it is wise for me to make the best presentation for my case that I can). But I only see my own little portion of the puzzle while they’re paid to see the big picture (like billable hours). I need to realize that they:
1) may have more data than I do;
2) may have more experience and political savvy than I do;
3) are in a legitimate position of authority over me; and
4) are making their decisions within the scope of their authority (for instance, they are telling me how to conduct my paid time – not how to run my family)

What is on my plate *today* is to be a good subordinate and do what the higher-ups want (which includes creativity-under-control and the respectful suggestion). In time, I may gain their ear, or may be placed in a position in which I can exhibit leadership… and hopefully listen to the guys in the trenches.

What is on *your* plate as a supervisor is to recognize that everyone is under authority, and that your subordinate wants the same respect and dignity that you want from your boss(es)… and also wants appreciation for his creativity, just like you do.

Listen to him! Put together a binder (as mentioned by someone else) and go over the cool new ideas once a week or month over coffee. Discuss the “required” work and see if the goodies can be added in while meeting a deadline, or if they can be pitched to the client and officially added.

If he honestly feels that you are for-reals *hearing* him, and are passing his good ideas up the chain of command, he’ll be more likely to accept the occasions when you have to toss his bad ideas (or tell him to do AB&C and shelve DEF&G). My boss actually listens to me, and I appreciate her beyond words. As a result, is a lot easier for me to hear, “Now it is ‘documentation time’ instead of ‘nifty new features time’.”

Talk softly

In reply to Like herding cats

this guy sounds like a lot of techno-nerds that are more interested in the technological challenges than the final deliverable. You say he is a nice guy, most are, then take some time to speak to him in private in a non-threatening manner and point out to him that the team, as a whole, has to meet the deliverables on time within the resource limitations set. Also point out that he needs to stick to the assigned work and that any expansions beyond that causes trouble for you from upstream management. Suggest if he sees something that should be done but is not part of the assigned work he should speak to you and leave at the assigned level unless you authorise him to do extra.

Most nice guy techn o-nerds don’t care about what happens to them, but he will care about you coping the flak because he is not sticking to task.

Another thing would be to arrange for informal daily or twice daily checks on what he is doing and how he is progressing. Just drop by with the cofee or tea or whatever and ask how is going each day.

Perhaps the Problem is the Solution

In reply to Like herding cats

1) Give this guy a project to manage and bring in on Scope, Time, and Budget. Let him feel the heat! As long as everyone loves his work he has no investment in doing less when he knows more is better – and rewarded.

2) Probably more practical is to involve everyone up front. In our environment we have involved all developers in the Requirements/Use Cases design phase with the customer. This helps us define Scope and agree on the Problem being solved. Granted, we learn as we actually develop, but any major change is channeled through the Change Management Process. Anyone, customer or developer may attend a Change Management meeting and make a proposal for scope, requirements change. If it’s beyond either, it’s put on the (you know!) the Enhancement List for future Version Releases. Just a thought.

I’m That Guy…s ..III

In reply to Like herding cats

There are basically 3 types of persons:
The Tech guy: He get so entusiasmed with tech, that almost forget everything else.
The Politics guy: He gets so enthusiasmed with human and social behaviours that …tech is just a “natural” evolution consequence.
The “blended” buy. the one who “blends” the right (i write again THE RIGHT!)balance between the the Tech and the politic.
If a “well blended” guy reads this tread, qnd gets clearer ideas.
A “bad blended” one, will become even more confused !
Have Fun !!
Carlos

Techies & Artists aren’t that different

In reply to I’m That Guy…s ..III

Like an Artist a Techie strives in the creation and the ability to express himself in his work …

Maybe he’s not “mis-directed”, because he delivers more than you have asked for; but attempts to achieve too much wihich leads to the impression that he “fails to manage his time”.

Personally I believe that the problems may have been due to mis-management by his previous managers who may have been threatened by his approach to work. This is also manifested by the fact that you have been told to “rein him in”.

Embrace the information that he is able to offer, and his approach; but explain that you will not cover anything over the time allocated for the project.
Arthur

hard to focus

In reply to Like herding cats

At the risc of sounding pompous I can for a great deal, relate to the problematic person in question, and if it were me I’d apreciate it if you’d tell me straight to my face that it’s “nice” what I’m doing and all but above and beyond the necessary, and that it’s work that’s not asked for (thus not payed for!). That would wake me up. This message did actually. Be “bright” and “smart” on your own projects but for work, do what’s expected and budegetted for ‘Cause in the end thats what it’s about isn’t it?

DjayMe

Cats ca=n be herded

In reply to Like herding cats

Try doing a focus group with just him and you. Main idea is to acknowledge all the other items you do not want him to do while re-inforcing what he needs to do.
His extraneous efforts are generally related to things he sees as not being addressed.
Your job is to let him kknow you know these are out there but the scope of effort is this.
Get him involved in the process, have him do progress reports on the minimum that will let you know when he wondersithout micromanaging. I did not say it was easy.

Rogue Employee

In reply to Like herding cats

Has anyone had an open discussion with this employee? That would be the first step. If the issue of overbilling hours has been mentioned and he continues to do it-then there probably is a deeper issue here i.e. he actually is padding his hours or has a complete disregard for authority. Sit him down and make it very clear what expectations you have of him. It was mentioned how nice this guy is, but keep in mind you’re not on the job to win a popularity contest. In the end this guy is your charge, not reining him im may reflect as a failure on your part as his designated supervisor.

Sounds ADD to me

In reply to Like herding cats

The above description is me before I got treated for it. There is probably no legal way to suggest that he investigate treatment, but it could do wonders.

Otherwise, structure is the key to getting the most out of ADD people. Reduced distraction, spin off the ‘boring’ parts of the job to people better suited for it, checklists, etc.

ADD correlates strongly with high intelligence, creativity and energy, and can be extremely valuable under the right conditions. It’s also very common, especially amongst the geek set, so devising ways to work with us can give you quite an advantage.

Check out “Driven to Distraction” by Dr. Edward Hallowell for excellent management strategies.

Driven to Distraction

In reply to Sounds ADD to me

LOL! That’s the book I read! So glad you had the author … I couldn’t remember and had to return the book to my boss after I read it. Very enjoyable reading, too. I would recommend it for anyone, not just AD/HD folks. It would help others to understand, and like I said, fun to read.

Didn’t know, but suspected that geeks are prone to this condition. ;^)

LahTera

Check for ADD, ADHD or GANTT

In reply to Like herding cats

People that operate like this may have Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. It is like the TV ad indicates: imagine a person having a TV in his mind where the channel is constantly changed. These folks are likely smart, but cannot stay focused. Their mind wanders all the time. Adults do not grow out of it. There are medications that help a great deal.

But you need to have a private conversation where you investigate if this is truly the case. Then you explain your case, where you have been asked to help him focus. Point out that it is to his and your benefit that he take care of his health.

If he doesn’t know if he is ADD (some folks don’t), then you can suggest he look into it, while admitting that you are not a doctor. And agree to meet to discuss this further at a later date. Remind him of this date later since he may forget, as his mind wanders or doesn’t perceive it as important. Follow up is very important.

If he admits to having had his condition checked out, and then the doctor from his past, or present indicated that he does not have ADD or ADHD, then attempt to put him on a GANTT. If he assembles the GANTT with reasonable timetables and posts it next to his computer, he will have it as a reminder to keep him on-track with deadlines. Since he assembled it, there is no reason for him to go astray. If he does go astray, then his explanations will be the key to why his projects aren’t focused or on time.

I suggest you begin with a simple, short GANTT so both of you become accustomed at using it in this manner. The GANTT will become your communication tool to answer why there are delays OR to help him develop better project habbits.

Once you have diagnosed the problems, you can implement fixes that you can both live with.

Driven to Distraction

In reply to Check for ADD, ADHD or GANTT

In this book, Driven to Distraction, there are 7 types of AD/HD laid out. And the author points out that these are the most common types generalized.

It’s hard to say how it affects people. For me, my mind doesn’t uncontrollably change the channels all the time. I can type things while listening to another person and have a zillion other things going on with my computer while watching TV and trying to deal with kids. It’s called multitasking. (Keep his mind busy enough, it might just work.) But that’s how it affects ME. Everyone’s different.

However, I do like your suggestion and how quickly you picked up on this possibility. Great troubleshooting! ;^)

LahTera

Be Up Front

In reply to Like herding cats

You should schedule a meeting with him and discuss your concerns with his job performance. Not talking about the situation with him will only prolong the problem. You have to be up front and let him know he’s wasting valuable time and this is creating a problem. You have been tasked with managing this employee and it’s your responsibility to provide feedback on his job performance. If you don’t take care of the situation now it will only cause problems later.

“Investing time in the wrong things”

In reply to Be Up Front

I would suggest that he’s investing time in the wrong things, rather than “wasting time” – he’s probably doing wonderful things… that the customer doesn’t want (or doesn’t know he wants).

Assure him that his work is good and valuable, but not good and valuable to the customer (yet) so “we have a problem billing for it”.

If you involve him in the estimating/promises/desired features process, perhaps he can push for the goodies ahead of time, and build in the time for his creativity.

It’s not as hard as you think

In reply to Like herding cats

1. Talk to him. Have the respect and courage to tell him as simply and honestly what you have shared with this discussion group. Happily he has already overstepped the parameters of the project so you have some tangible evidence to help make your point.

2. Project management includes time management. Guidelines and tracking mechanisms should be put in place. Some people need weekly tracking, some monthly, and some daily.

3. Why are you so reluctant to manage the guy? This is probably the more important and difficult problem.

Cut Him Loose?

In reply to Like herding cats

I have had experience with this type of situation before. It comes down to how much time do you want to spend providing direct leadership of this guy? I think the tendencies you mention are inate – part of his talent package. They probably can’t be changed, so they need to be constantly managaged. He may be in the wrong job/career, or needs to have his current job re-focused. He maybe needs more ability to be creative. The bottom line for me is that you should not expect this to change, so you will need to ride herd on him. Neither of you will probably be real happy in that case. Maybe time to cut him loose.

A Few Suggestions

In reply to Like herding cats

I agree with the previous comments which have suggested that this programmer may have some degree of ADD. As one who’s been there, here are a few things I’ve found helpful for myself:

– The key is to “un-distract” him – or, when
he has gotten distracted, – to “re-distract”
him back to the goal at hand. So…

– Put a postit note – in the middle of his
monitor – every morning reminding him of
the goal of the day.

– In Windows there is a screen saver called
“Marquee” that displays a message. Set
that each morning with the goal of the
day.

– Your job is not to micro-manage his work
(that is, you don’t have to tell him how
to do his job) but you may need to
micro-manage his goals: What is your
goal this morning? What is your goal this
afternoon? And what will the next goal be
after that?

– I find that an ordinary spiral notebook is
very useful for me. I get a big, brightly
colored one so it won’t get lost on my desk.
Then:
– Everytime I have to write something down –
a phone number, a URL, whatever – I write
it in there. It becomes, in effect, all of
my scratch paper. That reduces the amount
of clutter on the desk and then I can
actually find my note three days later.

Note that this notebook IS NOT ORGANIZED –
except that I use it in the normal manner,
from the front to the back, and I write
my normal notes and number only on the right-
hand page. If I’ve feeling really organized
I might go so far as to put a date at the
top of a page, but that’s it.

– Now here’s the important part that deals
with the distraction: One of the great
fears/problems for those of us who are
“organizationally challenged” is that we’ll
have a great idea and then forget about it.
(And that’s why we go off “chasing rabbits”
instead of concentrating on the big game.)
To help with that, when I get an idea that
is not DIRECTLY RELEVANT to what I’m
working on at the moment, I grab the
notebook and make a quick note of the idea
or issue on the LEFT hand page. Then,
having done something “behavioral” with
the distracting impulse, I find I can let
go of it (or get it to let go of me) and
get back to the goal of day. Later I can
go back and look over those left-page
notes to see which of them are worth
doing anything with.

You also might want to look at the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. It deals with a lot of these organization issues.

Hope this helps.

Go by the book.

In reply to Like herding cats

I have a similar problem with my assistant, and finally had to start going by the book. The behavior you describe is really a performance issue relating to the ability to follow instructions. I had to start documenting specific instances in which my instructions were not followed. In the long run, he will hopefully come around, but if he doesn’t, I will have laid the groundwork to see him off. I would rather have someone with somewhat less expertise, but who is willing to learn and follow instructions, than a crackerjack who follows his own agenda all the time. Believe me, I hate the fact that I have to handle this way, but things may work out for the best in the long run.

Living by the book

In reply to Go by the book.

If we could all live by the book, there’d be no point in it.

LahTera

Just Like Me?

In reply to Like herding cats

I noticed someone else posting a reply claiming he is like this fellow. In fact, taking the time and posting things like this is ancillary! I have minor ADHD but don’t trust medication, so had finally to get an internal motivation. There are things I wish my boss would do, and sometimes he does:

– I am driven more by need than the clock. Make sure I have meaningful and valuable stuff to do and I come through. Try to manage me to “put in my hours” gives mediocre results.

– I figure I am working for God. Sounds hokey, but thinking this way gives me daily incentive to work hard even when my boss isn’t pushing.

– Ancillary is not all bad! So long as they advance my knowledge and skills that are valuable at work, they are good activities! Be careful about squelching every tendancy to stray.

Jobs should be about performance first — that’s what makes the money for the company, not filling chairs. I suggest using this person’s oddities as a strength to you and your business.

Tighten the reins

In reply to Like herding cats

In my experiences with people of similiar habits, what works best for me is to inform the individual of the time constraints, and to assign my own time-critical outline for the specified task. If their competency or professionalism is not a concern, they should be able to accomplish the tasks you set for them. But be sure to explain the situation to the individual, as not to imply incompetence. Firm deadlines set with discretion is the best way to approach this, in my opinion.

Brings back painful memories

In reply to Like herding cats

Interesting discussion. Reminds me just how much the computer business world truely sucks. Having been a professional software engineer for 37 years (now retired) I am mindful of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this type of problem. But as an engineering department manager I also appreciate just how difficult it is to strike a balance between creative feedom and production efficiency. Take the measure of the employee. Is he worth the hassle?

IF this person is truely creative and a good problem solver, then he is worth the extra effort to keep him on the job. He may need more nurturing and accomodation than others. I am NOT in favor of coddeling primadonnas, but I do believe that creativity is a very rare commodity. When you find it, grab on and don’t let go.

Just my 2-cents worth.

Make sure he has the tools for the job

In reply to Like herding cats

Although my supervisor has never raised any time management issues with me I know we would save time if we had more of the right tools for the job, for example: I work as a helpdesk technician and it would save plenty of time If I had
1) Multimeter
2) Post diagnostic card
3) diagnostic and benchmarking software suite
4) toolset and a flashlight
I do a fine job with just the basic software and screw driver. I don’t ask my boss for these tools because I know I can do the job without them even though it takes longer, Also I can’t help but feel like they are doing me a BIG favor every time they order something and I hate asking for favors so I don’t bother. I know this is a shortcoming on my part maybe you’re employee is the same way?

It’s Reigning

In reply to Like herding cats

This might be seen as a training issue.
Perhaps there is mutual benefit to be found in an approach that positively acknowledges the employee’s strengths while having the employee acknowledge the timliness of the expectations of the work ‘contract’.
The managing supervisor will need to allocate and budget calendar time with this employee in order to, ‘reign in’ the employee. There is benefit in doing this as the manager can annotate the process and later refer to the project for a number of evaluative purposes. Motivational aspects of the relationship between employee and employer are also brought into focus and may be positively exploited.
If done right, the employee, having better learned real expectations may well perform better and incidentally not feel ‘rained on’ from above. Meanwhile, the manager may evaluate on all aspects of the time spent, as essential notes were generated and retained.

When you assign tasks

In reply to Like herding cats

make sure the request are in writing and be explicit about the scope of the work.

Management kills me sometimes, don’t do enough and that’s a problem (either you’re incompetent or don’t care, lack motivation or whatever). Do too much and that’s a problem too. I guess you only want it all and to be the elegant solution when it’s a free bonus ?

Adjacent Opportunities

In reply to Like herding cats

Agree with many replies that the individual might be trained to do a job that is not fit for his personality type. Being an INTP, I suffer from a similar malady. Since you did not roundly condemn the employee, my guess is that you want to redeem his work and perhaps you see some potential there, then you should try looking at his ideas.

First give him somewhere to go with his ideas, tell him to stop and write them in a concise summary then get back to the job at hand. At the end of the day, week or month meet with him and review his ideas. That is how I keep on track, just jot them down and move on.

After a couple reviews you will know if there is any gold in your future.

To develop new ideas will require investment and your boss will have to approve but you could be sitting on top of a cool thing. Every company needs new products that customers need. You might have someone who can ignite innovation. Your executives might call it a product adjacency. ?Adjacency Opportunities? is simply a fancy title for a good, exploitable idea that evolves off your core business.
dEd

Deal Truthfully

In reply to Like herding cats

Tell him that “you have been assigned to manage him because he has a history of being disorganized and of taking longer than expected to complete tasks. Let me emphasize that I do not think you are “padding” your hours, but you have a hard time getting focused and have a tendency to wander. You seem extremely bright, personable, technically excellent and I like working with you –but it’s been made clear to me that I’m in charge of reining you in, making sure you stick to the allocated hours and just doing what’s asked for (nothing above & beyond, because there’s no time/budget for extras on this project). It’s only been a week & you have already done some work that’s outside the scope. I will report this, and all the work you do, to my superiors. Your future is in your hands, I will not cover for you. Do what is asked or your time will be short.

SIS

In reply to Like herding cats

SIS stands for short interval scheduling, which can be a time frame as little as 30 minutes. Quite often, the bright but distacted staffers can be the most productive. The trick is the define small enought tasks with a short enough deadline to achieve your goals. Each person is different and it requires figuring out the best size of task and time frame for completion. If it’s within your authority, as an incentive, you can reward him with 10% of his time to work on anything he wants to, as long as he keeps making his target completions. Good luck

This is a simple one

In reply to Like herding cats

This is a simple remedy…. just tell him to not enjoy his job so much. Persons that go “above and beyond” seem to desire to totality of the “picture” rather than what is just asked. If that doesn’t work then break him down to single objectives and move him to another project rather than have him stay on a specific project to completion. You may find that over time he will become more efficient because he can complete individual tasks quickly because he does not involve himself with the whole picture…

Might just be…

In reply to Like herding cats

It might be that this particular employee is suffering from Adult ADD/ADPD — how do you get him to go for a check up with a doctor who deals with this problem? I know that I had his problem, saw a good doc, got some good meds and not I’m right on track.

Like Herding Cats

In reply to Like herding cats

Sounds like this person has AD/HD, to be honest with you.

<< history of being disorganized and of taking longer than expected >>

<< has a hard time getting focused and tends to wander >>

<< This man is extremely bright and personable and technically excellent and I like working with him >>

I suggest having him read Driven to Distraction, a delightful book about AD/HD. (It’s what one of my bosses did for me.) This person would probably do better at work if he wasn’t so boxed into his hours.

LahTera

Start from this posting

In reply to Like herding cats

It seems to me that you should have been able to say to him what you’re saying here. But don’t blame upper management for the reason just be truthful.

If you approach the guy with the critic you’ve provided to us here and include the complememnts and address the problem issues that should be a good place to start.

Find out what he thinks will improve his situation and allow for reasonable requests.

The person needs to know if there’s problems with his performance or in this case extra performance. Employees that do this feel they’re doing a better job and get insulted if it comes to the point where upper management or written notices are involved. You’ll loose that “extra mile” attitude and that’s more important to me than those that do no more than told.

If this person is eager and no doubt feels he’s doing a good job. It shouldn’t be that hard to be more defined in passing along what need’s to be done.

People often look at it in the opposite. They’re so afraid of hurting someone’s feelings that they won’t give simple advice on how to improve job performance. When actually it’s better to let them know up front. Everyone wants to know if there not getting it.

Why not assign this discussion as reading?

In reply to Start from this posting

Why not just give him the assignment to read this discussion?

Tell him your concern (namely, you want to treat him right, but need to tighten things up), and ask him to review these entries and tell you which things seem to apply to him and which things seem to be off base. Set a goal or two (like the spiral binder mentioned by Nomograph), and see where it goes. That way, we’re the ones bringing up awkward topics rather than you… I know I would profit from that approach, and am considering giving the link to my boss.

herding cats

In reply to Like herding cats

There is a technique that we employ in our developers group. We usually assign projects to two or three developers. The team is composed of one systems analyst, who does the analysis and design and one or two programmers to do the programming. At the planning phase of the project, we do Implementation Planning Workshop/Writeshop. There are four expected outputs which are the Planning Template, the Current Reality Dialogue (CRD) template, the Implementation Plan (IP) and the Risk Analysis and Contingency Plan. The length of days of these meetings depend on the size of the project. At most, two days. It is usually led by the Software Developer Supervisor because she is the one to monitor the progress of the project and the one to evaluate the performance of the developers. The Planning Template should contain the project description, project objective/s, the expected output/s and the desired outcome/conditions. The IP should contain the detailed activities that the developer/s must do in order to achieve or arrive at the objectives. The IP identifies who is responsible for the activity, when is the start and end date of each of the activity, the resources needed to do the activity and the expected output of the activity. The IP is agreed by the developer, the supervisor and the client of the project. You know, i let them sign a document which becomes the agreement of the developer and the client as to the timeframe of delivering the outputs. The Risk Analysis is a register of things that the developer think will block the attainment of the deliverables which is supported by a Contingency Plan which are probable solutions to these risks. Now these four documents are kept in a project folder ( digital and hard copy) and every week, Friday, is reporting day. Thursday afternoon, a reminder is sent to individual terminals of the developers reminding them to submit the digital copy of the Progress Report. The Progress Report contains already the scheduled activity/ies for the week and the expected output, these are taken from the agreed IP. Then we have oral reporting of output on Friday afternoon with the client. We found this technique very effective. And you know what, we discovered that once you really show that you are interested in all that’s happening to their project meaning they know that you are keeping track of their activities, they tend to be disciplined, productive and really a team. And on the part of the supervisor, you will realize that when evaluation period comes, your rating has basis.

My old boss had the solution ..

In reply to Like herding cats

I was the same guy, until one day my old boss hit me with this one:

“DEEV, you do great work, and some time someone will put you in charge of research and new concepts. Until then, I can only pay you for what is in the defined project scope, so your pay this week will reflect only that time. I’m really sorry about those 12 hours that you spent on the extras — but since the client isn’t paying for them, neither can we. Please, next time ask me first.”

It cured me right away …

Dilbert_Envy.

Sweet! This is like taking a padded baseball bat to someone.

In reply to My old boss had the solution ..

This is like taking a padded baseball bat to someone. Cures the problem without interjection. Will definately use sometime.

Like herding cats

In reply to Like herding cats

I am a Meta-Coach, and my specialty is ADD/ADHD. It seems to me that this man has Attention Deficit Disorder, to give it it’s full name. An ADHD Coach would be able to help hugely – briefly he needs to be accountable, needs to understand that the task is like an umbrella, and EVERYTHING he does must be linked to that umbrella. He needs structure and strategy – you will probably find his IQ is higher than most, and his ADDvantage is his energy, tenacity and creativity. P.S. I am in South Africa.

Two ideas – from experience

In reply to Like herding cats

I was 50 when I was (finally) diagnosed ADD/ADHD/Narcoleptic, medication has made a dramatic difference in my ability to percieve what I am doing related to what I am SUPPOSED to be doing. The diagnosis process took nearly three years before my doctor realized that perhaps I needed to be screened for ‘Attention Issues’ (I already had been diagnosed with ‘Sensory sensitivity’ [I have a ‘duplex’ nervous system, with nearly twice normal Rods/Cones in eyes and hearing sensitivity beond testable range at 1/2 Db – can smell much more than most, etc.]. There are a lot of things that make us all different – some that medical treatment can help with and some that we need to learn about ourselves [like tolerating the whine of fluorescent lights, or smell of a smoker who uses enough perfume to make my eyes water in an elevator].
Along with possibility of medical issue(s), there is always room for more precise management. Several have suggested not assigning the entire ‘project’ at once but rather assigning ‘sections’ of 8-20 Hours, working with the worker to have them identify tasks to report specific hours to, but what I have done that has helped me a great deal (even while using medication for other issues) is to accumulate ‘side issues’ as ‘New Requests’ for enhancements – to be able to dismiss them mentally while assuring that the ideas are not lost. I have found that many of these are often found to be very desirable – especailly if I can quantify Cost : Benefit in concrete, measurable terms. Of course these are often assigned back to me, for I probably can complete these faster than anyone else – knowing exactly what needs to be done.
To summarize (as I do tend to be a bit verbose also):
1) Encourage Medical screening if medical issues are suspect.
2) Establish a means to document needed enhancements to be reviewed, some of them may be vital.
3) Ask yourself “How did I identify that the work was outside the scope ?” and think of how to get that worker to see what you saw – ask him to help you (and ‘blame’ management wanting to understand what’s taking so long). Suggest meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays till he’s on track.

Asperger’s Syndrome

In reply to Two ideas – from experience

As long as everyone is doing an unqualified medical diagnosis, you might want to consider Asperger’s Syndrome. Bill Gates and Thomas Edison have been ascribed the symptoms.

Three suggestions

In reply to Like herding cats

I couldn’t resist responding; I think this is important because the person is obviously motivated, and it is worth making sure you handle this the right way. Here are my 3 suggestions:

1) In talking to this person, make sure the issue of how he prefers to work is kept separate from the billing issue. If he is inspired to do extra work on his own dime, that’s fine, as long as he doesn’t bill for it and delivers what’s required on time.

2) Make sure requirements are sufficiently clear, and that they do not make assumptions about limits that are merely “understood.”

3) If this person is talented in coming up with other things that would benefit the client, or in finding flaws with the requirements, why not involve him earlier in the process? Get him to learn how to sell his proposals, and involve him in the sales or scope-defining process.

One more thought!

In reply to Like herding cats

Everyone has touched on lots of good possibilities (e.g., ADHD, closer mgmt, etc.) and made excellent suggestions. Given the amount of detail you’ve provided, it does sound as though he has some degree of ADHD–an easier problem to fix than someone who is incompetent or padding their hours.

There is another possibility to consider however. There are generally two camps: (1) those who think of going to the moon and (2) those who get you there. IT/tech types tend to be in the latter group–meaning they are detail oriented versus “big picture” types. Of course we all possess both traits, but some of us are on the extreme ends of those camps.

If your employee is on the extreme end of being detail oriented, then he will definitely always find it harder to “quickly” work through a project because he will constantly feel compelled to stop and fix errors, omissions, inconsistencies, etc., which are glaring to him and not necessarily obvious to other coworkers.

Therefore, if ADHD is ruled out, then perhaps “how” this employee is utilized within your company should be addressed. Hopefully, there is room to capitalize on his strengths.

Specifically, as in my case, I am assigned the QA portion of projects–I “find” the errors, inconsistencies, etc., which my coworkers either do not have the time to find or do not have the ability to notice. They get the project completed, then I come in to be sure everything is correct, consistent, as requested, etc., thereby taking it to the “next level.” The process is similar to giving your term paper to an editor for fine-tuning.

Who would you rather have as your surgeon–the one who’ll get you into recovery quickly so that he can move on to his next patient or the one who’ll take the extra time needed to be sure that he is amputating the correct leg!? I’ll take the “slower” doc any day. In your case, your organization may need to decide if it “needs” the detailed oriented person at all or can “get by” with the quick surgeon who “usually” gets the job done right! JMHO. Good luck (to both of you)!

A slightly different viewpoint

In reply to One more thought!

If the problem is one of him not being motivated to stay on project track then a change of environment – his own office for example may help.
If the problem is simply working outside the parameters of the job then make him an assistant superviser on the next job so that he can be more responsible for bringing in the jobs on time and within budget.
Without saying much about his work practices you are admiring the work he has previously done and at the same time he shoud learn that “time is money” and that even if he has not yet got the management skills to control other programmers he will be in place to see the cost overruns from slow priogramming or the lack of benefit from “over – programming” in some cases solving problems which may never come up and may not exist.
As an example of over programming I had a programmer who insisted on validating every single keyboard input from operators. He drove us bananas when we had to strip out a load of error trapping when prices radically changed – outside the originally projected product price variation.

Other Reasons For Scope Creep

In reply to Like herding cats

There may other reasons why your employee is going out of scope

1) He’s receiving new requirements/features from others
For example in my company we have problems with this – project managers going to developers directly to get them to add features that will be attractive to their customer or for future sales – while not giving the developer budgeted hours to do this.
Or it could be an over zealous/rogue QA person who had decided to take on an architects role as well – and refuses to accept the work is ready to go out until these features are added.

Check with your employee to see if he’s getting requests from others to add onto his work. At my company one of our most notorious people for this is our CEO who keeps on adding more features for marketing reasons.

Developers need to be protected from these unauthorised requests. There should be a way for them to pass these requests to you – to decide if this will happen or not. It’s your job not theirs, to take the heat from PMs etc who are not happy about their features being added. If this is happening, this begs the question – why are people avoiding the normal process for having work done on a feature? Is it because the only way they can get something done is to go behind everyone’s back because the normal process has broken down or is so inefficient that people ignore it?

2) Crap requirements.
Are the requirements fully thought out and scoped properly before giving to the developers? I’ve seen so many bad requirements that have caused costly over-runs. Even something as simple as “attach file path of document to order” can cause this – as there are things to be thought of such as who can do this, should a user be able to delete/modify the file path, who can delete/modify the file path, security history, should there be viewers that are automatically loaded for a user to view the document, should the document be viewable to all, should the path be restricted to a certain directory or all anywhere – and I could keep going on. Also – someone should be looking at the impact on other parts of the application that the developer doesn’t “own”.

The developer could very well be pro-active and fixing things caused by bad design/poor requirements before they happen. Once these appear at a clients – they are extremely costly to fix.

Ask your employee to log down any requests for his time, i.e. who, what and why. It may be that someone needs to give him a budget for time spent doing work for future development. Also enforce the rule – all his work must come through you.

Go over the requirements with the developer to see if there are any ambiguities and if the work was scoped correctly in the first place. Meet with him frequently (i.e. more then once a week for a short period of time – 15 minutes?) to see what is happening – i.e. the feature may be easy enough to code, but to get it work properly he has to fix a lot of bad legacy code (which is usually undocumented).

Find out if these other factors are causing him to go over budget – otherwise you may be penalising someone who is doing a good job.There may other reasons why your employee is going out of scope
1) He’s receiving new requirements

Make him accountable for his work

In reply to Like herding cats

I suggest that prior to starting a project. You make him assess how long it will take him to finish it. Then you can negotiate with him if you feel that it should be shorter. Once you agree on a schedule, make him agree that any delay or additional work required to finish the task is for his account. No overtime or additional compensation will be given. You can also use this as an evaluation tool (no. of completed projects vs timeline).

simple solution — pay for results

In reply to Like herding cats

Instead of paying him by the hour, pay him for RESULTS!!

Manage his performance, not his hours worked.

Cat herding

In reply to Like herding cats

One thing I have found that works is to set smaller goals with prescribed time limits on a daily basis with this individual. Check up on him frequently and at the end of the time, be sure to sit down with him and review what he has done. Compliment the successes and record the times he wanders off track. Another thing that might work is to require him to keep a time log of his activities. Close supervision is required until he gets the message. You should also be aware that although he is personable and skilled he might not be the right fit for this job.
Good luck

I’m the guy they called to bring things in on time.

In reply to Like herding cats

I’ve read all the other advice and have concluded that too many people are trying to relive the late
sixties and seventies. All that touchy feely crap is not going to solve your problem. The fact that this guy has been around so long indicates he could be someone’s relative or worse the payment of a favor. Either that or it’s because he’s so personable and likeable he has become the company
pet. Your company is not a charitable institution.
More importantly it is there to produce products or services as efficiently and timely as possible
thus making profits on the investment of the owners or investors. A certain portion of these profits are retained to improve the company for both investors and employees benefit. This often translates to better working conditions and salary and wage increases. However, rationalizations aside you probably are not coming out of this smelling like a rose, no matter how you handle it.
Check with HR. Surely to God the company has a performance review program and while you are at it find out if the company’s medical insurance covers psychiatric or psychological counselling. At the end of the first ninty days of supervising
this guy you will have a firm idea of his knowledge, skills and work habits and you should
have all the documentation to establish your position. Call him in for a performance review and show him all the negative documentation and explain that these are things he needs to improve.
Be firm but not harsh. Show him his positive qualities and explain why they don’t offset the
negative ones. Tell him that with a negative review such as the one you are giving, he is on probation and will be reviewed again in a further 90 days. Give him some reassurance by telling him you are not looking for miracles but a demonstrable effort on his part to improve and some tangible improvement. Tell him your door is open for discussion if he feels the need but whatever you do, do not get overly friendly with the guy. Try to be helpful but remain aloof and detached. Suggest he check out couselling but make sure he understands he will have to use his insurance plan to pay for it. The company didn’t make him into the way he is and neither did you. It is sad that this situation has developed into what it has, since it probably could have been averted a long time ago, if only someone had had the balls to do something about it. However, he’s a big boy now and you can’t be expected to change him like a baby and powder his bum. There is an excellent possibility he will hate your guts but you are not being paid to be liked. You are being paid to manage, so get on with it. Make sure he signs or initials each and evey piece of documentation as you are probably going to be called on it later as proof of adequate warning in the event it becomes necessary to terminate him. If you could record the reviw session so much
the better but be sure you inform him on tape and get him to acknowledge this on the tape. The guy might fool you and pull up his socks and get with the program. Maybe he might even end up liking you
if your next review is positive. It’s probably not
likely as his behavior patterns have become ingrained but as I said it could turn out that all
he needed was a firm hand and some direction.
Whatever you do remain cool and aloof. With a guy
like this any display of friendliness beyond the
normal curtesies of the workplace would probably be taken as permission to backslide into his old patterns. You need to keep a tight rein on a guy
like this. Having them around can play absolute
hell with discipline amongst the other staff. They
figure he’s getting away with murder and they end
up having to carry his load and make up for his short comings. The strange thing is they’ll still
love him but resent the hell out of you for permitting it to go on. You are a manager. You do not need to be loved but you do need to be respected. Handle the situation properly and you
will win the respect and if you’re looking for love look to your bosses and your paycheck. They
should love you for effectively cleaning up the
load of crap that they permitted to exist. Whether
you end up tying a can to this guy or turning him around you will have demonstrated your abilities in a manner which should be reflected in your bonus or paycheck and possibly a promotion.
I worked in satellite construction in aerospace.
Every satellite is built with a specific launch
window in mind and to miss a launch is not to be
even considered. No excuses are acceptble and the
penalties could crush a company. Any manager with a missed launch date on his resume might as well throw in the towel and take up burger flipping at
Mickey D’s and God help you if they ask you what you’ve been doing for the last ten years and why you left. Even Mickey D has standards to which they adhere. At the company I was working at I somehow became the go to guy when a project fell more than six weeks behind schedule. I would be pulled off whatever on schedule project I was working on and get handed a load of crap. After The first one, I informed my bosses I would never take one on again unless I was granted hiring and firing authorization. I also demanded budget control. I must have impressed them because they granted my requests and dropped another load in my lap. I stayed at that company for five very exciting years and only left because I grew to hate the taste of Maalox and Tums. A lot of my time was spent on ranting and raving and stamplng my feet at a bunch of technical prima donnas. There are no techs like aerospace techs and the satellite guys are, depending on your point of view, either the worst of the lot or the cream of the crop. Did my people love me; I doubt it. There were times I wasn’t too fond of myself but as sure as God made little green apples my bosses must have loved me because they promoted me over people with more job seniority and were paying me six figures before I reached thirty. I’ve never doubted my abilitities to get the job done and was surprised to learn from an employee that I was respected because I was usually as good at the job as they were but also that they were sometimes physically afraid of me. I had to laugh since I haven’t been in a fist fight since grade 2 and any violence I’ve come close to took place when I was in the army or played football in college. I asked him if he had ever heard me threaten anyone with violence and he said no, so I asked him what made him feel threatened. While I am six foot tall I would not consider myself a particularly imposing specimen. He laughed an said it was nothing I said or did that made him feel threatened but rather what I didn’t do. He told me he always knew when I was angry about something because I would become very quiet and would remove my glasses and direct a very cold hard stare at the offender or perhaps the one who had conveyed the bad news. In fact, he said, I wouldn’t even raise my voice but apparently sitting waiting for me to explode was a bit unnerving. I asked if he had ever seen me blow up and he said no but the standing joke was I needed new waste baskets every few months and everybody worried about what would happen if there were no baskets around. I was never aware of it until recently but I guess a touch of fear can be an effective management tool. 3 Rules :
(1) Never chastise anyone, no matter the provocation, in public.
(2) Never chastise anyone when you are angry as you may be chastising the wrong party or say something which you will regret later.
(3) In the event you must terminate someone try to do it with compassion and not out of spite or
malice. Remember you are turning the individual’s
life and the lives of his family upside down and who knows you could be in for the same thing one
day. A little compassion won’t kill you. If perchance you ever come across an SOB who enjoys
firing people, depending on which side of the desk you are on, either quit or get rid of him.
Garbage like that nobody needs.

I’m the guy they called to bring things in on time.

In reply to Like herding cats

I’ve read all the other advice and have concluded that too many people are trying to relive the late
sixties and seventies. All that touchy feely crap is not going to solve your problem. The fact that this guy has been around so long indicates he could be someone’s relative or worse the payment of a favor. Either that or it’s because he’s so personable and likeable he has become the company
pet. Your company is not a charitable institution.
More importantly it is there to produce products or services as efficiently and timely as possible
thus making profits on the investment of the owners or investors. A certain portion of these profits are retained to improve the company for both investors and employees benefit. This often translates to better working conditions and salary and wage increases. However, rationalizations aside you probably are not coming out of this smelling like a rose, no matter how you handle it.
Check with HR. Surely to God the company has a performance review program and while you are at it find out if the company’s medical insurance covers psychiatric or psychological counselling. At the end of the first ninty days of supervising
this guy you will have a firm idea of his knowledge, skills and work habits and you should
have all the documentation to establish your position. Call him in for a performance review and show him all the negative documentation and explain that these are things he needs to improve.
Be firm but not harsh. Show him his positive qualities and explain why they don’t offset the
negative ones. Tell him that with a negative review such as the one you are giving, he is on probation and will be reviewed again in a further 90 days. Give him some reassurance by telling him you are not looking for miracles but a demonstrable effort on his part to improve and some tangible improvement. Tell him your door is open for discussion if he feels the need but whatever you do, do not get overly friendly with the guy. Try to be helpful but remain aloof and detached. Suggest he check out couselling but make sure he understands he will have to use his insurance plan to pay for it. The company didn’t make him into the way he is and neither did you. It is sad that this situation has developed into what it has, since it probably could have been averted a long time ago, if only someone had had the balls to do something about it. However, he’s a big boy now and you can’t be expected to change him like a baby and powder his bum. There is an excellent possibility he will hate your guts but you are not being paid to be liked. You are being paid to manage, so get on with it. Make sure he signs or initials each and evey piece of documentation as you are probably going to be called on it later as proof of adequate warning in the event it becomes necessary to terminate him. If you could record the reviw session so much
the better but be sure you inform him on tape and get him to acknowledge this on the tape. The guy might fool you and pull up his socks and get with the program. Maybe he might even end up liking you
if your next review is positive. It’s probably not
likely as his behavior patterns have become ingrained but as I said it could turn out that all
he needed was a firm hand and some direction.
Whatever you do remain cool and aloof. With a guy
like this any display of friendliness beyond the
normal curtesies of the workplace would probably be taken as permission to backslide into his old patterns. You need to keep a tight rein on a guy
like this. Having them around can play absolute
hell with discipline amongst the other staff. They
figure he’s getting away with murder and they end
up having to carry his load and make up for his short comings. The strange thing is they’ll still
love him but resent the hell out of you for permitting it to go on. You are a manager. You do not need to be loved but you do need to be respected. Handle the situation properly and you
will win the respect and if you’re looking for love look to your bosses and your paycheck. They
should love you for effectively cleaning up the
load of crap that they permitted to exist. Whether
you end up tying a can to this guy or turning him around you will have demonstrated your abilities in a manner which should be reflected in your bonus or paycheck and possibly a promotion.
I worked in satellite construction in aerospace.
Every satellite is built with a specific launch
window in mind and to miss a launch is not to be
even considered. No excuses are acceptble and the
penalties could crush a company. Any manager with a missed launch date on his resume might as well throw in the towel and take up burger flipping at
Mickey D’s and God help you if they ask you what you’ve been doing for the last ten years and why you left. Even Mickey D has standards to which they adhere. At the company I was working at I somehow became the go to guy when a project fell more than six weeks behind schedule. I would be pulled off whatever on schedule project I was working on and get handed a load of crap. After The first one, I informed my bosses I would never take one on again unless I was granted hiring and firing authorization. I also demanded budget control. I must have impressed them because they granted my requests and dropped another load in my lap. I stayed at that company for five very exciting years and only left because I grew to hate the taste of Maalox and Tums. A lot of my time was spent on ranting and raving and stamplng my feet at a bunch of technical prima donnas. There are no techs like aerospace techs and the satellite guys are, depending on your point of view, either the worst of the lot or the cream of the crop. Did my people love me; I doubt it. There were times I wasn’t too fond of myself but as sure as God made little green apples my bosses must have loved me because they promoted me over people with more job seniority and were paying me six figures before I reached thirty. I’ve never doubted my abilitities to get the job done and was surprised to learn from an employee that I was respected because I was usually as good at the job as they were but also that they were sometimes physically afraid of me. I had to laugh since I haven’t been in a fist fight since grade 2 and any violence I’ve come close to took place when I was in the army or played football in college. I asked him if he had ever heard me threaten anyone with violence and he said no, so I asked him what made him feel threatened. While I am six foot tall I would not consider myself a particularly imposing specimen. He laughed an said it was nothing I said or did that made him feel threatened but rather what I didn’t do. He told me he always knew when I was angry about something because I would become very quiet and would remove my glasses and direct a very cold hard stare at the offender or perhaps the one who had conveyed the bad news. In fact, he said, I wouldn’t even raise my voice but apparently sitting waiting for me to explode was a bit unnerving. I asked if he had ever seen me blow up and he said no but the standing joke was I needed new waste baskets every few months and everybody worried about what would happen if there were no baskets around. I was never aware of it until recently but I guess a touch of fear can be an effective management tool. 3 Rules :
(1) Never chastise anyone, no matter the provocation, in public.
(2) Never chastise anyone when you are angry as you may be chastising the wrong party or say something which you will regret later.
(3) In the event you must terminate someone try to do it with compassion and not out of spite or
malice. Remember you are turning the individual’s
life and the lives of his family upside down and who knows you could be in for the same thing one
day. A little compassion won’t kill you. If perchance you ever come across an SOB who enjoys
firing people, depending on which side of the desk you are on, either quit or get rid of him.
Garbage like that nobody needs.

GAMBOGE How did it turn out?

In reply to Like herding cats

It’s been more than a month since the original post.
Let us know if you solved the problem, and if so, how?

Noone is a perfect fit for anything, and this issue consistently crops up in management in one form or another.

Set Milestones and stick to them

In reply to Like herding cats

this may be your hardest task ever, so I would simplify it for myself, I would treat him like any other high risk project. I would set milestones weekly if necessary and have him report to them, and track his perfomance on a scale of 1-5. (1 low 5 High) By doing this you can deomnstrate to both the employee and management where he is going off track and how you are working to keep him on track. I have had my fair share of these types of employees good luck

re: herding the cats???

In reply to Like herding cats

talk to him in a private & friendly matter, so that he’ll be aware of what he is doing. there is nothing wrong if you keep the communication lines open.

Give him some slack…

In reply to Like herding cats

As you say, he’s pretty bright – so let him figure things out. For all we know, he may just be trying to show his skills to all.

If your project is still able to stick to timelines, you could try this…
1. Sit with him and define his tasks
2. Make sure those are accomplished on time
3. If he writes code (for example), ensure that his work is baselined and versioned clearly – so the team can differentiate between the necessary and the extras
4. Approve no overtime for the extra work – if you can identify that. At the very least if he’s met the goals in defined time that should be good enough to deny overtime.

I’m assuming this person is not very experienced, and recently out of college. With this outline, over time, he should realise how a team works and what is wasteful effort.

Then look at the positive side…maybe one of his ‘creative’ bursts results in something the customer would be delighted with!

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