Author Topic: Software Question - uneditable to do lists  (Read 3216 times)

fpjeepy

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Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« on: August 17, 2017, 10:16:54 AM »
I have a few employees that I would like to monitor and help be more productive. But I don't want to be a boss hovering over their shoulder.

What I'm thinking is I would like them to make a journal. Something like what Tim Ferris talks about. So we start at 7am. Lets say they have between 7-8am to make a journal article, and in that article there is 3-5 most important tasks for them to get done that day. At 8am the document gets locked. Then between 3:30 and 4:30, they write another journal article and explain what got done, and why something didn't get deleted.

I don't think I'll look at this everyday, but it will be something that will hold them accountable and they can't go back and change things. Just knowing that I could go back and look at it might be enough motivation to stay on task.

Anyone have any ideas of what would be a good piece of software for this?


fat-johnny

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2017, 10:32:12 AM »
Email?  You know, for the timestamp.

Have them email you the list by 8AM, and then again at the EOD with what they accomplished.  You could auto-filter these to a specified folder so they dont clog up your inbox, but you could go review them at your leisure.

FJ

plog

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2017, 10:38:29 AM »
Excel. 

Aggie1999

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2017, 10:47:38 AM »
As a white collar, software developer I would hate this. Something like a daily agile standup with stories would be accepted a lot more by the developers.

MNBen

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2017, 11:19:48 AM »
As a white collar, software developer I would hate this. Something like a daily agile standup with stories would be accepted a lot more by the developers.
For some reason, at first I assumed this was developers too.  Maybe because it said software question and I'm a developer.  But after re-reading, I think this is for any type of employee.

Aggie1999 was basically saying a morning team meeting, where you discuss what you want to get done today, what you did yesterday, and any hurdles in the way. 

Here's a site with more info and you can find many more online:  https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum/meetings/daily-scrum
« Last Edit: August 17, 2017, 11:23:30 AM by MNBen »

fpjeepy

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2017, 11:34:26 AM »
Email?  You know, for the timestamp.

Have them email you the list by 8AM, and then again at the EOD with what they accomplished.  You could auto-filter these to a specified folder so they dont clog up your inbox, but you could go review them at your leisure.

FJ

Hmm. But that is so simple. haha Thank you

fpjeepy

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2017, 11:44:40 AM »
As a white collar, software developer I would hate this. Something like a daily agile standup with stories would be accepted a lot more by the developers.
For some reason, at first I assumed this was developers too.  Maybe because it said software question and I'm a developer.  But after re-reading, I think this is for any type of employee.

Aggie1999 was basically saying a morning team meeting, where you discuss what you want to get done today, what you did yesterday, and any hurdles in the way. 

Here's a site with more info and you can find many more online:  https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum/meetings/daily-scrum

Yeah we have 5 CAD designers and 10 cabinet builders, all working under one roof. We currently have a morning meeting and it works well. I wouldn't institute this for the cabinet builders, because our system seems to be working. Only problems with the CAD guys are, I'm not as well versed in the CAD programing language so I don't understand everything very easily. And 5 CAD employee's w/ 5 most important tasks would take 25 mins to explain at the morning meeting, and I won't remember them the next day.

Ideally I could pay them as subcontractors, per project, so their time management wouldn't really be my concern. But thats not really possible in practice. There are too many unforeseeable changes that occur, and I would spend more time dealing with change orders etc.

Thank you guys for your input!

Spork

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2017, 11:52:41 AM »
I'm with Aggie... This sounds just awful to me.

Oddly, I worked in networking/engineering shop that had a fair sized group of CAD folks and this was sort of how they were treated as well.  They were always required to explicitly account for their day.  They were not a happy group.

marielle

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2017, 11:57:16 AM »
I'm with Aggie... This sounds just awful to me.

Oddly, I worked in networking/engineering shop that had a fair sized group of CAD folks and this was sort of how they were treated as well.  They were always required to explicitly account for their day.  They were not a happy group.

Yeah..I'm not specifically doing CAD for my job, just have some experience with a few programs, and I'm not sure something like this would really be practical. CAD is different in the sense that you may have a problem or you have to figure something out, so you have no idea how long that will take. Unless the work is really routine and simple, it's hard to put a day-to-day goal like this.

fpjeepy

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #9 on: August 17, 2017, 03:11:36 PM »
I'm with Aggie... This sounds just awful to me.

Oddly, I worked in networking/engineering shop that had a fair sized group of CAD folks and this was sort of how they were treated as well.  They were always required to explicitly account for their day.  They were not a happy group.

Agreed, but what stops them from just surfing facebook all day?

Spork

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Re: Software Question - uneditable to do lists
« Reply #10 on: August 17, 2017, 05:30:59 PM »
I'm with Aggie... This sounds just awful to me.

Oddly, I worked in networking/engineering shop that had a fair sized group of CAD folks and this was sort of how they were treated as well.  They were always required to explicitly account for their day.  They were not a happy group.

Agreed, but what stops them from just surfing facebook all day?

I am FIRE now, but I had about 25 years working.  I pretty much always knew who was a hard worker and who was a slacker.  I've seen all sorts of odd control and/or reporting requirements... and none of them really changed the slackers from being slackers.  One place I worked never dealt with them -- ever.  And slackers were slackers for years.  Another place usually dealt with them very heavy handedly.  They were never around for more than a year or so.

There is going to be some amount of heavy handed documentation for a slacker you need to fire.  You warn them, put them on an "improvement plan" (aka, "your ass is leaving here in a month") and then let them go if they don't turn around.

If they're surfing facebook -- and they consistently are "performers" ... then who cares.  If they're surfing facebook and they're slackers... see ya later.   (And for what it's worth, as an ex-IT guy, the IT department likely can give you a very detailed report of their surfing activity if that's needed.)