Re: Impressing your boss

From: <Kip.Bryant_at_Vishay.com>
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 09:48:08 -0700
Message-id: <01LFIHUZC9R89OEVH5@Mail.Vishay.com>

People have mentioned two things: documentation and metrics. Both technical and non-technical managers like to see these things. I think it is important that you take both these items seriously since bogus information will eventually harm you.

I think the difference in what you would do for a technical and non-technical manager might be presentation. A more graphical approach and more explanation may be necessary for a non-technical manager but might not work as well for a technical manager (especially if you spend too much time on it...I know that's vague). On the other hand, a technical manager often needs to provide information to non-technical management they report to.

Try to pick a few key items to provide right away rather than taking a long time to provide a more comprehensive picture otherwise you may appear to be "doing nothing". You'll have to judge for yourself but discussing this with your manager might be a good idea. This could avoid solving the wrong problem. Hmmm...even if it's the right problem, it's won't be if your manager has a different point of view. Boy, I could get beat up on that one...

I once had a manager who told me that sometimes you have to do "the right thing" instead of "doing things right". It took me a long time to understand what he was talking about.

Now I'll reallly stick my neck out: Think about these items: availability (uptime), capacity (a simple growth forecast to CYA), and performance (DB, server, network...).

Kip

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:29:45 +0000
From: ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net
Subject: Re: Impressing your boss
Sender: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Reply-to: ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net
Content-type: text/plain
Precedence: normal

X-Authenticated-Sender: cnlhbl9nYWZmdXJpQGNvbWNhc3QubmV0
X-archive-position: 10539
X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0
X-original-sender: ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net
X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at freelists.org
X-List: oracle-l

Original-recipient: rfc822;KBRYANT_at_Mail.Vishay.com

managers love metrics. Come up with some completely irrelevant statistics to do a 'db health check'. Show that these numbers are horrible. Then make some completely irrelevant change and show your boss the same irrelevant metrics and proclaim that the db is now healthy.

Spit out some archaic and jumbled techno-babble so that noone has any idea what you are talking about(they will assume you are smart, because only smart people talk like that).

this actually works... its also useful to get managers to go away when they get annoying.

--

http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l

--

http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Fri Oct 01 2004 - 12:07:58 CDT