Patronizing Games

If today were reviewed by Joe Bob Briggs, the summary would be: random policies to solve problems that don’t exist. Protest by all direct reports. Email in seven colors/fonts. Number fudging. Micromanagement-fu. One nearly-resigned writer.  Five dead action items.

The new defect resolution process email began with the words “Based on your input.” It was amusing not because considerable effort was put into the multi-colored fonts in various faces, sizes and styles, but because none of the recipients were asked to give input.

Below is the excerpted email (indented). Comments in square brackets are mine to preserve grammatical continuity without revealing distracting specifics. Because the multiple, unnecessary font thing drives me apeshit, I’ve removed most of them. One of the other recipients expressed surprised that VPYY figured out how to use multiple fonts. Shudder.

Goal: Create a process (we don’t have a written process) and make some incremental improvements if possible.

All-righty, then. We’re spending a lot of time writing down the description of what we’re already doing without the Vice President of Yatta Yatta’s guidance because … why? But then comes this:

Defect Resolution Process Overview:

1) Defect report is filed by anyone

2) Defect is [examined, then assigned a priority to fix or not fix] by the Product Manager (PM), Project Lead, Vice Minister of Yatta Yatta (VMYY) and some special cases anyone

3) Defect is Fixed by the Engineering team

4) Defect Fix is Validated by the Testing team

Oh my fucking god, this work is the hallmark of my arch-nemesis, Captain Obvious! Or maybe it’s not and our Vice Minister of Yatta Yatta is just being patronizing. Dare I read further?

Log the Defect: The defect reporter shall create a defect and set the relevant fields in the Defect tracking software including:

• Product: The reporter shall set the product which the Defect refers to.
• Severity: The reporter shall set Severity to their best guess
• Summary: Write a short, concise description, reuse of this field is high so make it count.
• Detailed Description: [stop! stop! I can't stand it...]

No, this is definitely patronizing. We’re creating a process because we don’t have a written process. In case we hire stupid people, we’ll spell out their jobs for them. “Johnny engineer will engineer things. Vice President of Operations Sally will Operate. Sheesh

And just in case the testing group was feeling left out for reporting to the Vice President of Yatta Yatta, but not being considered full-fledged engineers, here are their instructions:

Verifying the Defect is fixed:

• Review the Defect report
• If a test case was provide[d, it should be used] and verified to confirm the Defect is fixed
• Consider implications the Defect fix may have.
• Utilize creative exploration around areas of changed related to the Defect.
• If the Defect is not fixed then the “Testing assigned to” field shall be set to the Testing engineer and the status field shall be set to “Not Fixed”
• If the Defect is fixed then the “Testing assigned to” field shall be set to the Testing engineer and the Testing verified field shall be set to “Verified”
• If the Defect is “Not a Defect” the “Testing assigned to” field shall be set to the Testing engineer and the Testing verified field shall be set to “Verified” and the status field shall be set to “Not a Defect”

I can’t wait to see how this one goes over with the team.