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Show HN: Automating daily reports, because fuck it

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Re: Show HN: Automating daily reports, because fuck it

#5

Post by jmclnx »

nittanymount wrote: post #4

the daily report is a joke, our team did it years ago, then it stopped... anyone will read it? the PM or the lead will read it? we had a bot in our chat app, it auto asks everyone the questions 2 times daily, what did you do, what you are working etc...

Yes, but I think these are just saved to when something bad happens. Then the Managers will review them looking for someone to blame. Just a CYA activity.

Re: Show HN: Automating daily reports, because fuck it

#8

Post by MilStdJunkie »

jmclnx wrote: post #5
nittanymount wrote: post #4

the daily report is a joke, our team did it years ago, then it stopped... anyone will read it? the PM or the lead will read it? we had a bot in our chat app, it auto asks everyone the questions 2 times daily, what did you do, what you are working etc...

Yes, but I think these are just saved to when something bad happens. Then the Managers will review them looking for someone to blame. Just a CYA activity.

Yeah, I dig that. At the same time you'd think that a semi-competent analyst with some git chops would be able to interpret the precise crisis far easier than Random Executive Guy could re-create past event from "daily logs" and his Mark I Eyeball[1]. No one hand-flies anymore, don't see why management analysis should be the exception.

I guess, end of the day, that requirement - for daily reports - is sort of a red flag all by itself. Once they get to that point, something's borked.

[1] Oh, and his Leadership. I heard executives have that.

Re: Show HN: Automating daily reports, because fuck it

#9

Post by makestuff »

jmclnx wrote: post #5
nittanymount wrote: post #4

the daily report is a joke, our team did it years ago, then it stopped... anyone will read it? the PM or the lead will read it? we had a bot in our chat app, it auto asks everyone the questions 2 times daily, what did you do, what you are working etc...

Yes, but I think these are just saved to when something bad happens. Then the Managers will review them looking for someone to blame. Just a CYA activity.

The last startup I was at went hardcore with their JIRA Hygiene. All of the developers complained, but it turns out our director saw the layoff writing on the wall. He wanted as much ammunition as possible to try and save his org. Once the consultant came in that the board hired, the first thing they dug into was the JIRA tickets.

The funny part about this though was that our team had amazing JIRA hygiene because we barely had any work to do (I'm not exaggerating when I say I would have about 5 hours of work a week, I would try to help other teams out but that was "stepping on other teams turf"). The teams that had the worst JIRA hygiene were the core platform teams shipping new features. Our team built internal tools so we didn't have to care about UX/scaling/etc.

Ultimately some of our team was laid off, but it made me realize upper management really had no idea what was going on since they were not technical. All they saw was pretty JIRA graphs and thought our team was a bunch of rockstars.

Re: Show HN: Automating daily reports, because fuck it

#10

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

At a previous job, software testers had to write reports every Mon/Wed/Fri on what they did and e-mail them to their supervisor.

One of them got pretty tired of writing the same shit, and was like 99% sure the supervisor wasn't reading the reports, so started adding "I don't think anybody is reading these. This is a waste of my time." right above his e-mail signature.

It took over 3 months before it got noticed. Supervisor wasn't pleased, but had to admit he was right. He still required reports, but only on Fridays.

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