
The Zappos holacracy, Edward Tufte’s sparklines, and an 11×17 printer - jessaustin
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/10/01/the-zappos-holacracy-edward-tuftes-sparklines-and-an-11x17-printer/
======
achow
Having spent multiple decades in big technology corporations (now out of that
and in startup world), one thing I started noticing towards the end is the
dilution of power of Execs’ due to information becoming freely available to
all and sundry in an organization.

These are strategic level information (the technology trend, shifts,
competitive landscape etc.) to information on company metrics which are now
freely available publicly and it can be argued that even Exces’ would not be
aware of all of these info (blogs, analysis, leaks and even things like
anonymous public forums where employees speak out - not limited to ‘Glassdoor’
and its ilk).

Few decades back none of these information were available to an average joe
employee, they were accessible only to Execs - strategical knowledge through
paid researches, consultants, high paid industry advisors etc.

At that time _information WAS power_ , Execs’ would take decisions and
employees would follow, they had no room for doubts as they did not have any
information with them which would make them to think critically. However, now
things have changed so drastically that today a young employee is much more
clued in to technology trends, shifts and competition than an old world
clueless execs’. If you throw in jaded middle management in this mix, the
scenario gets even more ugly.

I guess this liberation and accessibility of information is going to play a
very big role in coming decades as to how organizations gets shaped.

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smoyer
Do I really want a piece of paper? Or a dashboard with the same contents -
perhaps set as my browser's home page. With the addition of a few large format
screens showing the dashboards in the work area, I think that would suit our
group better than a printed piece of paper.

I think the more important concept is to get everyone in the group focused on
the core metrics and one thing I do like about the idea is that there can be
more than a "few key metrics".

I'm imagining every one of our application servers counting the errors that
show up in the logs - right next to the raw hits and response time. We're
responsible for more than 80 products and it would also be informative to show
the error rates of products versus each other. Which of the products needs
maintenance work most?

We capture metrics for some of the newer applications in Ganglia, but the idea
that you might fit 500 numbers and spark-lines on a single dashboard has given
me so great ideas.

~~~
wtbob
> Do I really want a piece of paper? Or a dashboard with the same contents -
> perhaps set as my browser's home page.

The piece of paper would be sitting there, waiting to be seen. When's the last
time you looked at your browser's home page? I don't even think mine has one.

And changes to a dashboard-generating system can be a lot more expensive that
changes made in a paper-printing system. As someone elsethread noted, he's
seen millions spent on tools to replace cents spent on paper.

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Bud
The idea that a company would have 500 meaningful and actionable metrics that
would each produce relevant data daily seems laughable.

I've always found that the more time, money, and employee hours a company
spent on tracking metrics, the crappier that company was. (My sample size here
is admittedly small.)

~~~
bane
I've usually found that when metrics become the focus of an organization, the
organization optimizes around gaming the metrics. This happens in companies,
volunteer groups, communist dictatorships, capitalist paradises, everywhere.

Something inevitably gives.

I also have a hard time believing that this idea is floating putting a piece
of paper on everybody's desks, in 2015.

~~~
Spooky23
I use paper all of the time to present information. It's remarkably effective
and easy to do vs. screwing around with dashboard apps, accessing various data
sources, etc.

To avoid the horrific costs of printing things on color, I've seen millions
wasted on BI tools and other fluffery. 10 minutes of excel and 10 pieces of
paper does the job.

~~~
jsprogrammer
That is only a single paper though. Now you must replicate and distribute that
paper to every person in the company...ASAP.

~~~
Spooky23
The consumer of metrics that I give a hoot about are a few key team members,
the COO and CTO. I go to "# of copies" hit 6, and I'm done.

I'm not a total luddite btw, Most of what I do is project based or operations
in transition. So metrics are either evolving or we don't have a consensus
over what matters. So the building process of automated dashboard isn't a high
roi activity.

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to3m
For anybody else that was confused: 11x17 = A3 (this might save you 30 seconds
of googling)

~~~
hackcasual
11x17 at least gives a sense of dimensions (provided you recognize those as a
standard imperial paper size). With the A series of paper sizes, most people
know A4, then don't remember if sizes go up or down numerically.

~~~
to3m
Not the case in the UK, I suspect, which is where I live - most people will be
familiar with A3/A4/A5. They've been the standard for the past 50-odd years,
and penetration of non-ISO paper sizes is approximately 0%.

Until I followed the link, I didn't know 11x17 wasn't just a particular type
of printer. And once I found out it was a paper size, I wondered how large it
was, since I don't have a good feel for anything in inches once you get past
the 12 that fit on a standard 30cm ruler. Which is why I posted :)

~~~
twic
> Not the case in the UK, I suspect, which is where I live - most people will
> be familiar with A3/A4/A5.

Exactly. A4 is for letters and documents, so it's everywhere, people know A5
from their exercise books at school, and will have used A3 for something at
school, perhaps art or technical drawing.

Beyond that, flipcharts are A1, and postcards are A6, although i suspect most
people don't realise that. You don't see A2 much.

I once came across a giant A0 flipchart pad, and immediately attempted to make
a paper aeroplane from it. However, it's too thin relative to its size, so the
plane collapsed.

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jtth
This headline sounds like it was generated by a Markov chain reading hacker
news.

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greenyoda
_" What do readers who work in companies with at least 50 employees think?
Would it be helpful to arrive at work and find an 11×17 sheet of paper across
your keyboard with perhaps 150 metrics of the company’s performance?"_

Performance metrics like these don't really help with many of the kinds of
decisions we pay high-level managers for, especially long-term strategic
planning. For example:

\- Do we want to move into new line of business X? Would purchasing Company Y
help us do this?

\- What qualities are we looking for in the person we'll hire to replace our
CTO, who just turned in her resignation?

\- Should we be trying to negotiate a better deal with our health insurance
provider when the contract renews?

\- Should we change the way we recruit developers? Should we open a new office
in Shanghai to get access to the pool of developers there?

\- Is government regulation in our industry likely to hurt our business over
the next few years?

The company still needs people to deal with questions like these, and real-
time operational data doesn't really help with these kinds of problems.

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elmin
One thing that essentially every organization has is specialization (job
roles). When I was working as an engineer, my problems focused around
engineering. I simply didn't have the time to think about company-level
problems every day.

