Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad!nike!lll-crg!lll-lcc!qantel!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc Subject: Re: Performance Monitoring Message-ID: <716@hplabsc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-Oct-86 13:05:41 EDT Article-I.D.: hplabsc.716 Posted: Mon Oct 6 13:05:41 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Oct-86 03:52:48 EDT Reply-To: tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!fluke.UUCP!kurt Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Lines: 27 Approved: taylor@hplabs Reference: <681@hplabsc.UUCP> This article is from tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!kurt and was received on Sun Oct 5 02:04:57 1986 A person I know (who I must not name) worked at Rockwell on the space shuttle program. During that time somebody decided Rockwell was defrauding the government and sent the GAO watchdogs down to see that all those sleazy engineers were buckling down and spending taxpayer money wisely. Among the things they did was to study the engineer's office to see who was at work and who was talking to his buddies and going to the bathroom a lot. Rockwell was very nervous that they should look good for the GAO and this made a lot of tension in the office which interfered with work. However, the joke may have been on the GAO. The person rated by the GAO as the most effective worker was a person who spent nearly all his time at his desk, with a pencil in his hand. What the GAO didn't notice, but the engineers knew, was that this person had learned to sleep, at his desk, sitting up, with a pencil in his hand. No organization of this type is without a certain amount of needless waste. However the audit failed to identify the items the engineers agreed were the biggest misuses of time and money and also incorrectly identified non-productive people as producers. Performance monitoring must be very carefully designed if it is to have any results at all. Oh, Rockwell was not charged with any fraud it the shuttle program, although the GAO did demand they generate more paperwork on what they were doing, which further diluted their effectiveness.