
Zenefits payroll was secretly built in 60 days at a nearby Marriott - mtviewdave
http://www.businessinsider.com/zenefits-launches-a-free-payroll-service-2015-11
======
scintill76
> He secretly rented a room at the Marriott across the street from the
> corporate offices, took his best engineers to the room and told them, "Don't
> come out until you have a payroll system. Our goal is to get it live in 60
> days," he said.

It's good clickbait, but why's that a good management strategy? What does it
even mean? Who was it a secret from, the other employees? If the productivity
gain of dropping some team members is not canceled by the losses of setting up
a temporary office in a hotel room, maybe you were doing something wrong at
your real office. Or you're exaggering about the cloistered nature of this
"secret hotel room" for the press.

~~~
seren
My company has a process where it puts every stakeholder on a particular topic
off-site for a day. (often in an hotel room actually). This is to accelerate
the decision process, with a clear deliverable.

Even if it works, I find that awkward : it acknowledges that you can not get
the job done at work, because of the endless stream of meetings and
interruptions.

It really begs the question if the way we traditionally work with everyone in
the same office is really that efficient. But I am sure remote workers and
distributed work environment have their own share of issues.

~~~
riskneural
Who doesn't try to find places to hide from the endless stream of calls,
meetings, and emails?

In fact, once I check off the next four hours of meetings and client calls, I
think I will go hide in the awesome Stadtbibliothek (the library).

~~~
shoo
this reminds me of a couple of war stories by rachelbythebay: Opening
umbrellas indoors on purpose [1], and Project Darkness [2]

[1] -
[https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/06/18/umbrellagate/](https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/06/18/umbrellagate/)

[2] -
[https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/24/projectdarkness/](https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/24/projectdarkness/)

------
bsg75
Is 60 days to build an _automated_ payroll system really a selling feature or
success story?

Mistakes in payroll can cause a tremendous amount of effort for both the
employer and employee, and I would want my payroll system to be well tested,
battle hardened, and near bullet-proof as possible.

In other words, not one built in a hotel room in two months.

