My favorite managing up pattern is the Feynman estimation technique. During the Manhattan project he and others were asked to report on what they would be discovering in the next quarter. Since they were doing groundbreaking work nobody had a clue how to answer and this caused the researchers a great deal of stress. Then they realized they could just hold back 3 months worth of results and “estimate” the discoveries they had just made. The end result was that management was very happy with the predictable progress and the scientists were free to do their work unimpeded.
Applying this in contemporary corporate America is left as an exercise for the reader.
Very cool process but this seems antithetical to the tech world which is often driven by agile processes, right? I can’t imagine a business leader being happy about making decisions that should be “agile” on dated information. This seems a bit like lying to get away with working on pet projects unhindered by product/business. Am I way off-base and misunderstanding the suggestion here?
It works with agile. You just have to sandbag a bit. Doesn't have to be 3months in an agile organization, just work for a sprint, then tell manager that's your plan for next sprint. If they change plan, you'll naturally have a 1 sprint slip, and in Sprint 2 you plan the previous sprint's worth. Or do this on the week or day level.
Do you have a source for this (maybe an autobiography or some blog article)? I'd love to read more on the story leading up to him deciding to go with this strategy.
I don't recall the exact book. It was one of the collections of anecdotes. Maybe, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman? Otherwise What Do You Care What Other People Think? or The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.
Applying this in contemporary corporate America is left as an exercise for the reader.