Management Bits and Tips

A few years ago I introduced the notion of a process parasite. After reading biographies for some time I decided to extend this to the notion of a contributing process parasite:

Let me give you an example. Recall that Einstein made his discoveries while working in a patent office where he had free time. Would have the management of that office tolerated if they knew what he was doing while processing patents for clock devices? So let’s give a definition of a contributing process parasitism:

an extension of a process parasitism between an employee and an organization in which one, the process parasite, makes a contribution to humanity or to a specific domain of activity in general.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -

Previously announced book (publication date is 1st of September, 2010) now got preliminary front and back covers.

Front cover:

Back cover:

- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -

From time to time it is useful to have formal thank-you-for-your-service letters emphasizing how customers need your services for day-to-day running of their business processes and / or during their critical situations (bit). Have ready templates for asking about such letters (tip).

Follow-through prioritized service requests with feedback templates. If there are no critical issues schedule periodical questionnaires. When people ask you for a service-favour request a letter clarifying how your service-favour reply helped them to do their business.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -

To my shame I have never read the famous book “AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis”. Being interested in antipatterns which I often figure out myself in the practical domain of software technical support (see Crash Dump Analysis AntiPatterns) I looked for the most recent collection of the management ones and found this book which I’m reading now:

Antipatterns: Identification, Refactoring, and Management (Auerbach Series on Applied Software Engineering)

In addition to their own patterns, the authors of the book provide the description of Brown’s antipatterns (the book mentioned earlier, “AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, …”), provide two tables for easy antipattern identification in an organization or a team (Management Antipattern Locator and Environmental Antipattern Locator), list and comment on Myers-Briggs personality types, discuss Keirsey temperament groupings and Bramson’s human personality phenotypes. Highly recommended. I especially liked “All You Have Is a Hammer” antipattern of which I was guilty myself during my earlier Team Lead role experience.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -

Reflecting on my old software engineering days I remember working for one of the biggest software factories in Russia and noticing IE windows on workstations when I was passing by. Then working for one of the biggest software factories in telecommunications domain I noticed the same screens whenever I entered engineering offices. People there obviously had plenty of time for browsing, reading and typing (not in some programming language of course). At that time I started calling them Process Parasites and their relationship to a team and an organization as Process Parasitism which (paraphrasing Wikipedia definition) is: 

a type of symbiotic relationship between an employee and an organization in which one, the process parasite, benefits from a prolonged, close association with the processes in the organization.  

What kind of benefits a process parasite gains? Obviously one benefit is time: free time to do whatever a parasite wants or needs but irrelevant to business goals. This especially happens when there are process inefficiencies and underplanning of resources.

One manager reading this post noticed the curious similarity between the word “website” and the word “parasite“.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -