April 27, 2019 at 18:59About one girl
I don’t know why, but you liked the story about one guy . If you remember, he left.
Where I’ve gone, what I’m doing, what are my successes, I won’t say, because I don’t have permission from him. But his story received an unexpected continuation.
I, as you understand, know him. And not just familiar - we studied together at the Faculty of Instrumentation. Radio Day is on its nose, and it flew back into our hole to meet alumni. He called me for a beer and told me a story. About one girl.
As you remember (and if you don’t remember, please re-read the article “About one guy” to understand the context), this guy claimed that he understood something in business and its processes. He helped to increase profit there, reduce costs, achieve business goals, and argued that not only anyone could do this, but programmers should, too.
So, among his achievements and practices was such crap as accelerating the work of programmers. The guy claimed that acceleration of 10 times is quite achievable. At the enterprise mentioned in the previous article, he achieved acceleration 4 times. Where he worked after, reached the number 10.
But he, in the context of this topic, always had two problems. First, he could not prove that acceleration is real. Well, think for yourself - would you believe that it is possible to make programmers do as much work in 3 days as they do now in a month? Okay, we’ll divide his fantasies by at least 5 - how do you like the statement that in 2 weeks you can make as much as you do in a month? Crap, right?
So he could not prove. The companies in which he applied this practice were not IT, and there was nothing to compare with and with. Well, programmers did 100 applications a month, and began to do 400. Who cares? And after all, there are a lot of arguments in favor of the fact that all this is from the evil one, just juggling the numbers, dividing the tasks into smaller ones and nothing more than trying to splurge to get more money or political points.
The second problem is that since the company is not IT-friendly, it is not possible to convert acceleration into money. He tried to express in money, but it turned out, again, with a pitchfork on the water. For example, through the cost of maintenance, the cost of accounting, etc.
When he worked at the plant, he even managed to reduce staff costs, but he could not tie the acceleration of the work of programmers to the payroll fund. The leader and the owner were adequate people, and saw that there was something in this, but they were not completely inspired by his ideas. Even when he applied them not to programmers, but to designers, for example, he accelerated their work several times over in one week, so they closed the project, which lasted for years.
That's how he suffered with these problems. He applied his methods in his work, and from the bottom of his heart worried that he could not take this experience beyond the limits of his practice.
And then a girl appeared.
The girl, with a high probability, will read this article, so I immediately apologize to her. The guy called her only by name, and spoke about her very flattering and respectful. She, as they say, is smart and beautiful - she showed a photo, I confirm.
At the time of meeting the guy, this girl worked as the head of the escort department in a fairly large franc 1C. I must say right away that the acquaintance was purely business, and it remained so.
I know that you stay away from the 1C world, so I’ll briefly explain. The support department is a few programmers who solve small problems of clients. Not projects, not large sales of software or licenses, but small tasks within a few hours. Other departments are engaged in krupnyak in franchises.
Financial math is also very simple. There is an hourly rate - say, 2,000 rubles. The client wants to do some nonsense for himself, coordinate a certain task with him, and discuss the hours - for example, four. The programmer does, hands over to the customer, he pays 8 tr. Everything is simple.
So, this girl lived for herself, worked and did not know grief. And then by chance somewhere I stumbled upon texts written by our hero - just about speeding up development. Unlike other readers, she, for some reason, believed.
And so they met.
The guy, exhausted by the disbelief of the whole world in his ideas, came to some 1Sn seminar, and read a couple of reports on his experience. After the report, as usual, several people approached him, asked questions - but the guy knew that this would run out of interest. Already prepared to dump in the hotel room, but then a girl approached him. Yes, not one, but with its director.
We went to the coffee shop, nice chatted for an hour. They asked specific questions, delved into the details, assessed the risks. But the guy, naturally, was in seventh heaven with happiness - for the first time he was seriously interested in his ideas.
The girl and her directors were interested in the same problem that the guy considered key - how to turn the acceleration of programmers into money. After some deliberation, a hypothesis was put forward - to equalize the clock.
Any task of the escort department has several metrics in hours. The first assessment is that which the programmer gives (“well, I will do it in 4 hours”). The second assessment is that agreed with the client. The third metric is how much the programmer actually spent.
So, in the support departments, to summarize, the time actually spent is always more than the time being sold. Often a programmer is mistaken in the assessment - we tend to be optimistic. Often a manager cannot sell a task for the hours it costs. Often, one programmer evaluates a task, and another does the one that understands the context worse. There are many reasons, but the fact is that it sells less hours than it takes.
The guy proposed to equalize this watch - this is the goal. He claimed that he could accelerate programmers? If you make sure that the hours sold are equal to the spent, then, it seems, there should be more money. On that and dispersed.
A few days, then - for several weeks, the guy waited for him to write or call - either the girl or her director. But from them - neither to hearing, nor to spirit. At first the guy was upset, he tried to write a couple of times, but he did not dare. In the end, he convinced himself that these were the next interested.
But two months later, somewhere in November, they wrote to him. Enthusiasm knew no bounds - they were really preparing to switch to his methods! A limited number of participants - only 5 people, but it’s real, truly to go over!
The girl asked questions according to the method, asked if there were any developments on the task management systems so as not to damage his garden, but at that time the guy had nothing. Of course, he answered the questions, studied the change plan, tried to give some advice. But the girl disappeared again.
She appeared two months later, at the end of January. Her test group has been working under the new rules for a month.
The guy explained to me like that. Of all that he knows about accelerating the work of programmers, about 10% were published in the public domain. Of these 10%, a girl took about half of the methods and practices. It turns out that she took advantage of 5% of his knowledge.
The results of the first month, the girl was simply stunned - she was able to increase the ratio of hours sold to spent by 40%. Roughly speaking, now programmers spent 60% of their time selling the same amount of money.
The guy was extremely happy, but he wrote the letter to the girl in rather restrained tones.
The second month of using the practices did not bring any special results. As the guy told me, this happens almost always - the euphoria of the first month overshadows the eyes, and at best everything remains in place, and sometimes there is a regression that makes one doubt the success.
However, the third month put everything in its place. Now attention. As said now, alas, the late Mikhail Zadornov, take a little more air into the chest ...
In the third month they increased revenue by 1.5 times. Or in another way - by 50%. Profit also increased, because fixed costs remained the same.
After such results, a fracture occurred. Moreover, both the guy and the girl.
The guy, learning about such results, went into a two-day binge. He says this happened to him for the first time in his life. The result of the girl solved not only both of his problems - to prove the effectiveness of the methodology and transfer it to money, but also the third - rejection. This problem was not acute, but was already recognized.
It is understandable. The guy managed to speed up work in two companies, but he was the key link in the system - everything was done not only in his presence, but also under his direct supervision. And here, his participation, in fact, was limited to one meeting before the start of work and several letters filled with more polite business phrases than useful information.
And the turning point in the girl’s life was not so joyful. After consulting with the director, she decided to talk about her experience at the general meeting of the company.
According to tradition, all employees of the company attended the general meeting. The girl made a presentation, talked about the essence of the changes and, most importantly, the results. There was a thunderous applause, and this was the end of the meeting. Its format did not involve discussion.
The next morning she went to work, anticipating a lot of meetings, conversations and pleasant words from colleagues. Guess how many colleagues came to her to find out the details?
Right, exactly zero. As if nothing had happened. Just think - revenue has grown one and a half times, without costs, consultants, new accounting systems, changes in motivation, etc. Does this happen every month in every company?
She was worried for a couple of days, but, being a serious and result-oriented girl, she spat and stopped waiting - she simply continued her activities.
First of all, she expanded the scale of her experiment to the entire department. Started to introduce a couple more chips from the materials of that guy. She began to take a closer look at the results. But then it was time for a regular meeting with the director.
And then, as they say, it turned out. It turned out that the director had already managed to talk with all the managers about the new approach and its results. Managers were divided into two camps: neutral and opponents.
The neutral, as expected, said: yes, not bad, but let's see what happens next. Opponents, of course, said that garbage is everything. Just random success. Generally unrelated to its changes. You never know - there were more applications from clients, or they successfully passed, quickly, without the usual iterations. Although, the numbers showed that there were no more applications.
So there was a surface current of resistance, which tried to take our girl to the open ocean. Just in case.
But suddenly an undercurrent was discovered.
If you are not familiar with the typical system of remuneration of programmers in francs 1C, then I will briefly explain. They get a piecework salary for hours sold to customers. For example, 400 rubles per hour. What rate they had there, I do not know, but the principle in most cases is the same.
Main feature - only sold hours are paid. If the client pays for the work 4 hours, and you do it for 8, then you get all the same for 4.
And now let's recall the results. Revenue, i.e. the number of hours sold increased by 1.5 times. There were no distortions in people, i.e. for each programmer in the test group, the output grew, on average, 1.5 times. Well, a simple conclusion - they began to earn 1.5 times more money.
Naturally, other programmers in the company found out about this. First, colleagues from the same escort department, then all the rest.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that the test group worked much easier. They, unlike the rest, in general, from the word at all, stopped working on weekends and overtime. They did not have deadlines for tasks and, as a result, hassle, unpleasant conversations with customers and sales managers, time pressure, etc. Now, when they began to get more money, they began to go to work as a holiday.
Programmers from other departments discussed these lucky ones, mainly among themselves. Those who tried to talk with their leaders received a tough rebuff and no longer tried. But the undercurrent intensified.
Some programmers could not sit still, and asked for a transfer to the support department. Basically, these were the guys from the project teams, who occupied far from the main roles there - as they say, bring-give.
In general, the practice of transitions has taken place before - but mainly in the opposite direction. New employees came, as a rule, to the support department, learned the basics of programming on 1C and typical configurations there, and when they reached a certain level, they were taken to projects.
The stereotype that the main money comes from projects has been and remains very strong. Therefore, transfers to the escort department, which were previously considered something like a demotion or a link to hard labor, were puzzling.
The first two defectors were released without problems - as mentioned above, these were not particularly valuable employees. On the third, a scandal has already happened.
The heads of other departments and project teams unanimously came to the director with a complaint. They sincerely believed that the girl was conducting a secret war, luring employees, and, in general, destroying the company.
The director had to make a difficult decision and freeze the crossings. The third defector was denied translation. Jobs in the escort department also had to be closed in order to calm down a strong surface current.
And in the escort department everything was earning.
Over the next month, the entire escort department switched to a new methodology. There was no increase in revenue, but there was no drop either - they also remained at a factor of 1.5.
But the next month was another breakthrough - 1.8 (in relation to the average revenue before the start of the changes). Another month, and the ratio increased to 2. The
girl continued to correspond with the guy, about once a month. He tried to tell her about other methods and new practices. And the girl told him mainly about the political component of the transition process - in fact, from there all the information presented in this article.
The farther, the less she cared about the opinions of fellow leaders. At first, if you remember, she was worried - well, just a few days. Now she was completely indifferent to what others thought. The only executive person whose opinion mattered was the director.
The director could ruin everything if he went on about the majority. Not for long, though - the girl understood that she would not give up the methods she had mastered. In extreme cases, you can always go to another company, to a similar position, and continue your practice there.
The director probably understood this (neither I, nor the guy, nor the girl know for sure). A fortunate circumstance was that the director was also the owner of the company, so increasing the profit of one of the departments was his direct interest.
Therefore, the director continued to balance. He supported the girl, but secretly. In the open space, he maintained neutrality. I made certain adjustments to calm other leaders, as I wrote above. In general, well done director.
Then amazing things began to happen, from a completely unexpected perspective. But more about that another time.
Where I’ve gone, what I’m doing, what are my successes, I won’t say, because I don’t have permission from him. But his story received an unexpected continuation.
I, as you understand, know him. And not just familiar - we studied together at the Faculty of Instrumentation. Radio Day is on its nose, and it flew back into our hole to meet alumni. He called me for a beer and told me a story. About one girl.
Retreat
As you remember (and if you don’t remember, please re-read the article “About one guy” to understand the context), this guy claimed that he understood something in business and its processes. He helped to increase profit there, reduce costs, achieve business goals, and argued that not only anyone could do this, but programmers should, too.
So, among his achievements and practices was such crap as accelerating the work of programmers. The guy claimed that acceleration of 10 times is quite achievable. At the enterprise mentioned in the previous article, he achieved acceleration 4 times. Where he worked after, reached the number 10.
But he, in the context of this topic, always had two problems. First, he could not prove that acceleration is real. Well, think for yourself - would you believe that it is possible to make programmers do as much work in 3 days as they do now in a month? Okay, we’ll divide his fantasies by at least 5 - how do you like the statement that in 2 weeks you can make as much as you do in a month? Crap, right?
So he could not prove. The companies in which he applied this practice were not IT, and there was nothing to compare with and with. Well, programmers did 100 applications a month, and began to do 400. Who cares? And after all, there are a lot of arguments in favor of the fact that all this is from the evil one, just juggling the numbers, dividing the tasks into smaller ones and nothing more than trying to splurge to get more money or political points.
The second problem is that since the company is not IT-friendly, it is not possible to convert acceleration into money. He tried to express in money, but it turned out, again, with a pitchfork on the water. For example, through the cost of maintenance, the cost of accounting, etc.
When he worked at the plant, he even managed to reduce staff costs, but he could not tie the acceleration of the work of programmers to the payroll fund. The leader and the owner were adequate people, and saw that there was something in this, but they were not completely inspired by his ideas. Even when he applied them not to programmers, but to designers, for example, he accelerated their work several times over in one week, so they closed the project, which lasted for years.
That's how he suffered with these problems. He applied his methods in his work, and from the bottom of his heart worried that he could not take this experience beyond the limits of his practice.
And then a girl appeared.
Girl
The girl, with a high probability, will read this article, so I immediately apologize to her. The guy called her only by name, and spoke about her very flattering and respectful. She, as they say, is smart and beautiful - she showed a photo, I confirm.
At the time of meeting the guy, this girl worked as the head of the escort department in a fairly large franc 1C. I must say right away that the acquaintance was purely business, and it remained so.
I know that you stay away from the 1C world, so I’ll briefly explain. The support department is a few programmers who solve small problems of clients. Not projects, not large sales of software or licenses, but small tasks within a few hours. Other departments are engaged in krupnyak in franchises.
Financial math is also very simple. There is an hourly rate - say, 2,000 rubles. The client wants to do some nonsense for himself, coordinate a certain task with him, and discuss the hours - for example, four. The programmer does, hands over to the customer, he pays 8 tr. Everything is simple.
So, this girl lived for herself, worked and did not know grief. And then by chance somewhere I stumbled upon texts written by our hero - just about speeding up development. Unlike other readers, she, for some reason, believed.
And so they met.
A meeting
The guy, exhausted by the disbelief of the whole world in his ideas, came to some 1Sn seminar, and read a couple of reports on his experience. After the report, as usual, several people approached him, asked questions - but the guy knew that this would run out of interest. Already prepared to dump in the hotel room, but then a girl approached him. Yes, not one, but with its director.
We went to the coffee shop, nice chatted for an hour. They asked specific questions, delved into the details, assessed the risks. But the guy, naturally, was in seventh heaven with happiness - for the first time he was seriously interested in his ideas.
The girl and her directors were interested in the same problem that the guy considered key - how to turn the acceleration of programmers into money. After some deliberation, a hypothesis was put forward - to equalize the clock.
Any task of the escort department has several metrics in hours. The first assessment is that which the programmer gives (“well, I will do it in 4 hours”). The second assessment is that agreed with the client. The third metric is how much the programmer actually spent.
So, in the support departments, to summarize, the time actually spent is always more than the time being sold. Often a programmer is mistaken in the assessment - we tend to be optimistic. Often a manager cannot sell a task for the hours it costs. Often, one programmer evaluates a task, and another does the one that understands the context worse. There are many reasons, but the fact is that it sells less hours than it takes.
The guy proposed to equalize this watch - this is the goal. He claimed that he could accelerate programmers? If you make sure that the hours sold are equal to the spent, then, it seems, there should be more money. On that and dispersed.
Start
A few days, then - for several weeks, the guy waited for him to write or call - either the girl or her director. But from them - neither to hearing, nor to spirit. At first the guy was upset, he tried to write a couple of times, but he did not dare. In the end, he convinced himself that these were the next interested.
But two months later, somewhere in November, they wrote to him. Enthusiasm knew no bounds - they were really preparing to switch to his methods! A limited number of participants - only 5 people, but it’s real, truly to go over!
The girl asked questions according to the method, asked if there were any developments on the task management systems so as not to damage his garden, but at that time the guy had nothing. Of course, he answered the questions, studied the change plan, tried to give some advice. But the girl disappeared again.
First results
She appeared two months later, at the end of January. Her test group has been working under the new rules for a month.
The guy explained to me like that. Of all that he knows about accelerating the work of programmers, about 10% were published in the public domain. Of these 10%, a girl took about half of the methods and practices. It turns out that she took advantage of 5% of his knowledge.
The results of the first month, the girl was simply stunned - she was able to increase the ratio of hours sold to spent by 40%. Roughly speaking, now programmers spent 60% of their time selling the same amount of money.
The guy was extremely happy, but he wrote the letter to the girl in rather restrained tones.
Fracture
The second month of using the practices did not bring any special results. As the guy told me, this happens almost always - the euphoria of the first month overshadows the eyes, and at best everything remains in place, and sometimes there is a regression that makes one doubt the success.
However, the third month put everything in its place. Now attention. As said now, alas, the late Mikhail Zadornov, take a little more air into the chest ...
In the third month they increased revenue by 1.5 times. Or in another way - by 50%. Profit also increased, because fixed costs remained the same.
After such results, a fracture occurred. Moreover, both the guy and the girl.
The guy, learning about such results, went into a two-day binge. He says this happened to him for the first time in his life. The result of the girl solved not only both of his problems - to prove the effectiveness of the methodology and transfer it to money, but also the third - rejection. This problem was not acute, but was already recognized.
It is understandable. The guy managed to speed up work in two companies, but he was the key link in the system - everything was done not only in his presence, but also under his direct supervision. And here, his participation, in fact, was limited to one meeting before the start of work and several letters filled with more polite business phrases than useful information.
And the turning point in the girl’s life was not so joyful. After consulting with the director, she decided to talk about her experience at the general meeting of the company.
Surface current
According to tradition, all employees of the company attended the general meeting. The girl made a presentation, talked about the essence of the changes and, most importantly, the results. There was a thunderous applause, and this was the end of the meeting. Its format did not involve discussion.
The next morning she went to work, anticipating a lot of meetings, conversations and pleasant words from colleagues. Guess how many colleagues came to her to find out the details?
Right, exactly zero. As if nothing had happened. Just think - revenue has grown one and a half times, without costs, consultants, new accounting systems, changes in motivation, etc. Does this happen every month in every company?
She was worried for a couple of days, but, being a serious and result-oriented girl, she spat and stopped waiting - she simply continued her activities.
First of all, she expanded the scale of her experiment to the entire department. Started to introduce a couple more chips from the materials of that guy. She began to take a closer look at the results. But then it was time for a regular meeting with the director.
And then, as they say, it turned out. It turned out that the director had already managed to talk with all the managers about the new approach and its results. Managers were divided into two camps: neutral and opponents.
The neutral, as expected, said: yes, not bad, but let's see what happens next. Opponents, of course, said that garbage is everything. Just random success. Generally unrelated to its changes. You never know - there were more applications from clients, or they successfully passed, quickly, without the usual iterations. Although, the numbers showed that there were no more applications.
So there was a surface current of resistance, which tried to take our girl to the open ocean. Just in case.
But suddenly an undercurrent was discovered.
Underwater current
If you are not familiar with the typical system of remuneration of programmers in francs 1C, then I will briefly explain. They get a piecework salary for hours sold to customers. For example, 400 rubles per hour. What rate they had there, I do not know, but the principle in most cases is the same.
Main feature - only sold hours are paid. If the client pays for the work 4 hours, and you do it for 8, then you get all the same for 4.
And now let's recall the results. Revenue, i.e. the number of hours sold increased by 1.5 times. There were no distortions in people, i.e. for each programmer in the test group, the output grew, on average, 1.5 times. Well, a simple conclusion - they began to earn 1.5 times more money.
Naturally, other programmers in the company found out about this. First, colleagues from the same escort department, then all the rest.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that the test group worked much easier. They, unlike the rest, in general, from the word at all, stopped working on weekends and overtime. They did not have deadlines for tasks and, as a result, hassle, unpleasant conversations with customers and sales managers, time pressure, etc. Now, when they began to get more money, they began to go to work as a holiday.
Programmers from other departments discussed these lucky ones, mainly among themselves. Those who tried to talk with their leaders received a tough rebuff and no longer tried. But the undercurrent intensified.
Defectors
Some programmers could not sit still, and asked for a transfer to the support department. Basically, these were the guys from the project teams, who occupied far from the main roles there - as they say, bring-give.
In general, the practice of transitions has taken place before - but mainly in the opposite direction. New employees came, as a rule, to the support department, learned the basics of programming on 1C and typical configurations there, and when they reached a certain level, they were taken to projects.
The stereotype that the main money comes from projects has been and remains very strong. Therefore, transfers to the escort department, which were previously considered something like a demotion or a link to hard labor, were puzzling.
The first two defectors were released without problems - as mentioned above, these were not particularly valuable employees. On the third, a scandal has already happened.
The heads of other departments and project teams unanimously came to the director with a complaint. They sincerely believed that the girl was conducting a secret war, luring employees, and, in general, destroying the company.
The director had to make a difficult decision and freeze the crossings. The third defector was denied translation. Jobs in the escort department also had to be closed in order to calm down a strong surface current.
And in the escort department everything was earning.
Success development
Over the next month, the entire escort department switched to a new methodology. There was no increase in revenue, but there was no drop either - they also remained at a factor of 1.5.
But the next month was another breakthrough - 1.8 (in relation to the average revenue before the start of the changes). Another month, and the ratio increased to 2. The
girl continued to correspond with the guy, about once a month. He tried to tell her about other methods and new practices. And the girl told him mainly about the political component of the transition process - in fact, from there all the information presented in this article.
The farther, the less she cared about the opinions of fellow leaders. At first, if you remember, she was worried - well, just a few days. Now she was completely indifferent to what others thought. The only executive person whose opinion mattered was the director.
The director could ruin everything if he went on about the majority. Not for long, though - the girl understood that she would not give up the methods she had mastered. In extreme cases, you can always go to another company, to a similar position, and continue your practice there.
The director probably understood this (neither I, nor the guy, nor the girl know for sure). A fortunate circumstance was that the director was also the owner of the company, so increasing the profit of one of the departments was his direct interest.
Therefore, the director continued to balance. He supported the girl, but secretly. In the open space, he maintained neutrality. I made certain adjustments to calm other leaders, as I wrote above. In general, well done director.
Feedback
Then amazing things began to happen, from a completely unexpected perspective. But more about that another time.