ideas-business-management

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4775922

what to do about this? maybe explicitly ask ppl/measure how many 'sign-offs' they have to get per week and ask ppl for ideas for streamlining/eliminating signoffs. mb look at managers who have signoffs as a bad thing unless their (the manager's) boss thinks its necessary (not forbidden to request a signoff that ur boss thinks is unnecessary, just discouraged).

i wonder how much else that ppl complain about bureaucracy could be measured:

• ask ppl how many times they have to get permission/signoffs to do things per week
• could ask ppl how much time they spend on bureaucracy (including reporting, and receiving or sending any kind of internal communication, including this survey), and how much of that time they think could be streamlined, and how
• could ask ppl how much time they spend in meetings, how much of that time they think could be streamlined, and how

and of course also have to ask the opposing questions in case there is too little:

• does someone or some class of people need to be reigned in? e.g. abusing their power either through carelessness, incompetence, or maliciousness?
• is there an annoying lack of a documented, consistent procedure in some area?
• does some process produce haphazard result, suggesting that there needs to be more oversight?
• do you need more communication from someone or about some topic?
• would you like a process that gives you the attention from someone else?

heck while we're at it could calibrate other things too:

• too much emphasis on results or too litte (vs. effort and process)
• too much autonomy or too little (vs. people working together towards a common goal)
• too much communication from upper management about 'what the plan is' and 'what's going on' or too little?
• too much communication from middle management or too little?
• too many managers per others or too little?
• is management too blunt vs is it too hard to know where you stand in management's eyes
• is the company too quick to fire people vs too tolerant of non-performers?