Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We reward the fireman, the person who extinguishes a fire. Did the fireman, however, start the fire?

I used to see this often. I worked in a place where engineers would plan projects and deliver systems per their plans. The trouble was: the engineers were terrible planners. They were good system designers and builders, but terrible planners.

The good designers and bad planners would plan projects that would start, finish, and deliver in short periods of time. That was the problem: the periods of time were much too short. The plans were overly optimistic, yet were written in stone. One week into a six-week project, everyone realized that it was a ten- or twelve-week project.

Well, promises had been made. To ask for more time would be to admit a mistake, and mistakes were not allowed. The result was the engineers worked 12-hour days seven days a week to meet the original plan. One engineer I recall cancelled a second honeymoon to meet the plan. These were heroic efforts. Heroes were rewarded like heroes.

But these were firemen arsonists. They set a house on fire (bad plan) and rushed in to put out the fire (12×7 work). They were rewarded for a terrible mistake and then a cover-up of the terrible mistake.

Some of us engineers planned well, worked, delivered, and were never rewarded. We weren’t heroes who worked all those extra, unpaid hours. We planned well, worked the plan, and delivered. We didn’t extinguish any fires because we didn’t create any fires. Only heroic firemen were rewarded as heroes.

I suppose the fireman arsonist still exists. Overly optimistic plans lead to heroic dedication to cover up a mistake. Rewards flow to heroes. Those who plan well are overlooked. I think we can do better. Let’s try.