Conference 7.286::digital

    Don't know how many managers we've got (wanna bet no one does??), but
    we've sure got the V.P.'s of all a sudden.  Must be a hunnert of 'em.
    
    Do know that when IBM when through their period of "readjustment", they
    got rid of 37,000 U.S. employees......which included 7,000 managers.
    I would dare hazard a guess that we won't see anything like that.

SET MODE/CYNICAL

>why haven't we seen more of a shake out of managers?

...because its the managers doing the shaking out...

re: .1

>    Don't know how many managers we've got (wanna bet no one does??), but

Actually, i think we owe the IRS information on how many people have "manager
job codes" each year.  But that in itself is misleading--when i had 7 people
reporting to me (as far as their Personnel Profile manager code was concerned,
meaning as far as reviews and salary planning were concerned), i had a job
code of "Principal Software Specialist".  But the government considers that
to be an individual contributor job rather than a manager job.

It would be interesting to find out just how many employees had OTHER EMPLOYEES
REPORTING TO THEM, irrespective of job code!  It would be interesting to find
out how many people who supposedly managed others had only two or three (or,
worse, just ONE--or even ZERO) direct reports.  That would say a lot about how
out of kilter the overall management structure of this company is.
									paul

    Here in Australia, every year Digital publishes a report on
    equal opportunity in the workplace, listing the number of
    men and woman at each level (individual contributor, supervisor,
    higher level manager etc...)
    
    When the last one appeared, I did the sums, which indicated
    that n('managers') was very close to n('individual contributors').
    Now I wish I still had the document, so I could give you some real
    numbers.
    
    DM

Not all managers manage people. I have the word "manager" in my job title.
My function is to manager programs and/or projects.

At any rate it is certainly true that the personnel job title often does
not have much [if anything] to do with one's real function in the company.


Joe

    While you're on the subject, have you noticed how many groups use the
    dotted lines to justify the number of managers in them?
    
    We're using a model where sales support software people are tied to
    sales sums, and that gives some if them 8-12 'virtual' reports when, in
    fact, they JP&R 3-4.
    
    Clever people these managers.

>i think we ow the IRS information on how many people have "manager job codes"

What is this belief based on?

    I don't know if this is representative of the company these days, but
    our group just reorganized, added a layer of managers, and have come 
    to the following ratios:
    
    49 total individuals in full time positions
     7 Secretaries
    --
    42 Non-secretarial people
    
    19 Managers (45% of non-secretaries)
    23 Non-managers  (55% of non-secretaries)
    
    Ratio of managers to total non-managers =  1 to 2.6
    Ratio of managers to non-secretarial non-managers = 1 to 2.2
    
    Mark
    

    RE: .8 I heard about one group where the ratio was about 3 to 4
    so they re organized. Now there is the same number of managers
    but no non-managers. I'd like to see some groups with all non-managers
    as I really believe they could get some serious work done.

    			Alfred

    re .8 -- that's an incredibly high ration of secretaries.  Is anyone
    in charge out there??  What's the justification (he laughingly asked)?

    
    We need to look at the other side; I have about 13 people reporting to
    me - I think that is too many. My Regional Manager has somewhere around
    20 people reporting to him. That may or may not be too many. There are
    UMs in my building with (I'm guessing here) anywhere from about 4
    people to about 20 people and DMs with from 0 to about 9 or 10. There
    are too many managers someplaces but not enough in others!
    
    

Having been in management for a number of years I agree that when the number 
of direct reports exceeds 10 you feel overwhelmed in the personnel 
admin/management aspects of the job. That's if you do things the traditional 
way... Manager does Salary Planning, writes reviews, holds one-on-one 
meetings, oversees staff meetings, addresses personnel issues, etc.

I believe we have to look at other techniques. Self-managing teams have been 
tried here and there within the corporation. I think we need to go out and see 
how the more successful companies are managing their people. I believe a team 
of dedicated workers can manage themselves. They all have to be 100% dedicated 
to their team goal and be total team players. All issues, including reviews, 
salary planning, personnel issues are worked by the team. This is quite 
different than what we do today and I don't think the leadership of this 
company is ready for such a radical change. I'm not sure most of the employees 
are ready for this either. Someone somewhere in Digital has to implement this
AND show that it works. I'd then suggest sending the team (or at least a 
videotape) to various sites to describe how they did it.

As a manager, I got fed up with all the administrative and bureaucratic tasks.
I did not feel empowered even though my boss(es) did all they could to make me 
feel so. Not only are there too many managers, but there are too many 
admin processes and procedures which don't necessarily all have to be
eliminated, but certainly can be done more efficiently.

And I'm proud to have left my last management job, recommending that my group 
consolidate with our sister organization. My former boss agreed and, presto, 
one less manager.

Regards,

Jim (out here in the field as an individual contributor and loving it)

re: .11

I'm probably wrong, but i thought that i had heard that the average Japanese
manager had 25 direct reports.

re: .12

>Having been in management for a number of years I agree that when the number 
>of direct reports exceeds 10 you feel overwhelmed in the personnel 
>admin/management aspects of the job. That's if you do things the traditional 
>way... Manager does Salary Planning, writes reviews, holds one-on-one 
>meetings, oversees staff meetings, addresses personnel issues, etc.

I'd say the biggest reason why having a large number of reports makes a
manager feel overwhelmed is that the manager is spending a SIGNIFICANT part
of his/her time doing individual contributor functions that she/he should
NOT be doing.  One-on-ones, reviews and staff meetings are not the problem.

Examples of inappropriate work, which mostly comes down from above (i suppose
some managers actively seek it out): doing "special projects" for the manager's
manager, sitting on cross-functional committees and task forces, doing
presentations and slide-shows for clients/customers (internal or external) that
should be done by an IC, doing the Finance analyst's job for him/her, doing
the Personnel employment specialist's job for him/her, etc.

I believe that the above activities are what is frequently referred to as
"managing up" (i.e., neglecting the people that work for you while you try
to score browny points with your manager and your manager's manager).

If each manager above the line supervisor level had several consultants on
their staff in addition to the 10-15 lower level managers that should be
reporting in, the vast bulk of these "special project" and committee-oriented
tasks could get done by the consultants, leaving the managers free to manage.

>As a manager, I got fed up with all the administrative and bureaucratic tasks.
>I did not feel empowered even though my boss(es) did all they could to make me 
>feel so. Not only are there too many managers, but there are too many 
>admin processes and procedures which don't necessarily all have to be
>eliminated, but certainly can be done more efficiently.

The admin processes and procedures can certainly be streamlined to our
advantage...those shouldn't be getting in the way of management.  But the
biggest advantage would come from managers who are focused on what is their
proper function: maintaining the short list of what the priority tasks of
the group are, staying on top of what work is being done to satisfy those
priorities, helping to remove obstacles from the paths of the folks who
are actually doing the work, and helping the workers to grow and improve.

								paul

    	Here at the Customer Support Center in Colorado Springs, my
    	immediate manager has over 20 (23?) specialists reporting to him.

    	It used to be about 35 until a recent restructuring where my group
    	was merged with another smaller one and then split in two.  I am in
    	one half of the VIA/TP group.  the manager for the other half also
    	has over 20 direct reports.  there is a sister group to VIA/TP --
    	the LST group.  Looking at my recent cost center chart, that
    	group has 34 specialists reporting to one manager.  The three
    	managers I referred to all report to the cost center manager.

    	There is also an ops manager listed on the chart with no direct
    	reports.  I suspect he also reports to the cost center mgr.

    	I'm not sure who the cost center manager (also called the district
    	manager, I believe) reports to, or how many layers there are from
    	there to some VP or Ken O himself.
    	
    	There are 4 secretaries listed for this cost center, as well as
    	one other person who handles the administration of our SPR 
    	processes.

    	I'd have to say that of all the groups I've ever worked in for DEC,
    	this is one of the leanest with respect to managers.  And I think
    	things run pretty well here.

    	Joe Oppelt

    A question for .14,
    
    How many reviews does each manager perform?. Do they do each one
    personally?.                               
    
    E.

    I am an EIS District Manager, and I feel my district is typical in the
    Field.
    
    We have a total population of about 55. There are three units, each
    with one manager and one secretary, and about 14-16 technical people. I
    have a secretary, and six senior technical people reporting to me in
    addition to the three UM's, and an administrator. 
    
    The ratio of managers to non managers is about 4:51 or about 1:13.
    
    This seems to work pretty well, since some of the day-to-day direction
    for the technical people is provided by the more senior technical
    people, and the UM's are not unduly burdened.
    
    I think this is typical and about right. Some earlier reply's about
    ratios as high as 1:2 or managers with no direct reports probably refer
    to use of the term "manager" in a different sense - like "project
    manager" or "account manager". I am referring to people managers.
    
    

    re .15

    	I can't vouch for the LST portion of our cost center, but for us
    	at VIA, we all get 2 reviews per year.  And a specialist's manager 
    	is personally involved in each one.  All reviews are done with
    	peer input as well.  In fact, I haven't been so "reviewed" at
    	DEC as I have been in this current job.

    	The amount of time the managers spend on reviews *IS* a point
    	of serious concern at times.  In the past our managers were
    	obviously overworked as they never seemed to be available for
    	elevation issues (customer requesting to speak to a manager), and
    	reviews were chronically late.  But with the reorganization, and with
    	additional procedures in place to allow certain senior technical
    	people to handle the elevation issues, we have found a marked
    	improvement in the availability of managers to manage.
    
    	I think it is important to note that we at the CSC are perhaps a
    	unique group of people to manage.  We do not have to be "managed"
    	on a day-by-day basis.  Most of us are "veterans" in the computer
    	world.  We know what we are doing.  We are asked to work self-
    	directedly and can go for quite awhile without direct management
    	input.  We are entrusted with the satisfaction of the 10-20
    	customers we serve each day.  We are not on a project that has to
    	be managed.  Each call becomes a mini-project in itself that can
    	take from 10 minutes to a few days at the most.  At least from
    	my own personal experience, management of my job involves my
    	career more than what I am doing.  Management ensures that I have
    	the proper training.  THey ensure that I am "administrated" 
    	properly (reviews, raises, compensation.)  They ensure that as
    	a group we provide the quality demanded by the customers.  They'll
    	bring to my attention when I am not performing up to par (Hey, Joe,
    	your survey scores were good/bad this quarter.)  When I was in
    	software development, I don't believe that the same employee-to-
    	manager ratio would have been effective.
    
    	Joe Oppelt

RE:                     <<< Note 1284.16 by MARBMS::TOPPING >>>

>    The ratio of managers to non managers is about 4:51 or about 1:13.

This is fairly consistant with what I have seen in field organizations although
it is probably a bit compared to most other companies I have seen (or
worked for).  Having about 8-10 people per manager fairly common outside
of Digital.

Where Digital gets into trouble is with some of its corporate groups.  A
co-working and I just went over the organization of one such group
(which will remain ignominious) that had seven people of whom three were
managers. 

I just tallied up the org chart for my own cost center, and the result was:

	managers and supervisors: 14 (10%)
	staff and secretaries:    12 (9%)
	engineers:               111 (81%)

--PSW

    What counts is not so much the total number of mangers versus IC's,
    but rather the layers of management. I've seen examples in some other
    note here, for my part of CS in Europe it's 6 layers between a
    specialist and the European V.P.
    If one assumes that every manager can easily manage 10 people, than 
    the Euro VP could be in charge of a 1 millon people company !
    The holy matrix management system doesn't really simplify this.
    /fred
    

    By "manager," do you mean what we call here supervisors?  My manager
    has 22 people under him.  But in between there are three supervisors. 
    the supervisors do the job plans, the performance reviews, the
    individual development plans, the staff meetings, the one-on-ones...
    
    So the ratio in my group is, the last time the org chart came out:
    
    74 individual contributors
    11 supervisors			(~1:7)
     5 managers
     1 senior manager
    (3 "secretaries")			(~1:3.5 overhead/worker)

>    74 individual contributors
>    11 supervisors			(~1:7)
>     5 managers
>     1 senior manager
    
    	What do the 5 managers do?  There is a 2:1 ratio between
    	"supervisors" and managers.  Without knowing what those 5 people
    	do, if you were to chop them out then there would be a nice
    	1:10 ratio between THE manager and the supervisors.
    
    	Do you have any direct business contact with the manager that
    	manages your supervisor?
    
    	*THAT* is that alot of people are complaining about in this
    	topic -- the propogation of MIDDLE managers in this corporation.
    
    	Joe Oppelt

re: .21

>    By "manager," do you mean what we call here supervisors?

It's confusing, that's for sure.  For instance, in the IS job categories
you might find someone who's a 16DH (Information Systems Manager 2, not
to be confused with a "system manager") who has no direct reports but who
counts toward whatever the mythical total number of managers is that the
government cares about.  You could also have a 16BE (Information Systems
Consultant 1) who DOES have direct reports but who is NOT considered a
manager for government purposes.  Obviously these two people should trade
titles, but there are various career ramifications for both if that
happens.  I believe a supervisor (like a 16DB, Information Systems
Supervisor 2) would count as a manager for the mythical counting purposes.

By rights, a manager should be anyone that does "people management"--that
is: hiring, workload assignment and prioritization, performance reviews,
salary planning, career planning, education planning, and corrective action.
Anyone else is (after going up enough levels) a consultant.  And project
leaders, project managers, program managers, product managers, and all the
other people with "manager" in their self-description of their job are NOT
managers unless they have (and hopefully perform) all the people management
responsibilities listed above.
							paul

    re: .23
    
    Your definition seems pretty strict.  I am a project leader and so I
    perform workload assignment and prioritization, but not the other
    things you described.  Shouldn't that make me "slightly" a manager?
    The supervisors in my group do all of the other tasks---does that 
    make them "nearly" managers?  By your definition, taken strictly,
    there are _no_ managers in our group!
        John Sauter

    
    This is probably subject to a _lot_ of interpretation, but I would not
    list project leader as a management role. According to the Software
    Engineering Manual and my experience, project leaders have
    responsibilities to see that projects are technically well run, and
    to act as a focal point for technical communication. The only
    responsibility that reaches slightly into the management domain is 
    "recognizing performance problems with assigned personnel and notifying
    the appropriate managers," but note that even there, the project
    leader has no power to do anything directly about performance problems.
    A project leader typically does not have the power to commit
    individuals to a project, but has the responsibility to determine the
    staffing requirements for a project.
    
    My rule of thumb has always been, if you don't have the responsibility
    for producing performance reviews, you're not a manager. Although
    project leaders review the performance of people working on the
    project, thus helping supervisors and managers to produce performance
    reviews, it is typically not their direct responsibility to produce the
    performance reviews. Therefore, project leaders are not managers.
    

re: .24

I think i'd have to concur with .25 in most ways.  Although as a project leader
you perform workload assignment and prioritization it is mostly delegated by
the individual contributor's people manager.  So if s/he comes down and says to
the IC: "drop this project, i need you to work on X instead right now!", you're
going to be left high and dry with your same workload and 1 less resource.

								paul

    re: .26
    
    I'm sure it varies, but in my group a supervisor would not go to an
    individual contributor and change his assignment without talking to
    the project leader first.  The supervisor does not need to "get
    permission" from the project leader, but does need to keep him
    informed.  The project leader, knowing that he was about to lose a
    particular person, would then start replanning the project.
        John Sauter

            <<< HUMANE::HUMANE$DUA1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DIGITAL.NOTE;2 >>>
                          -< The DEC way of working >-
================================================================================
Note 1284.28      How many managers does Digital have or need?          28 of 28
16BITS::DELBALSO "I (spade) my (dog face)"           51 lines  14-DEC-1990 11:27
                  -< What question are we trying to answer? >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the question in the basenote is really after finding out "how many people
in DEC either have the word manager in their title, and/or have people
management responsibility as part of their formal JEC job description
(regardless of whether in practice they _do_ that), and/or have people
management responsibility in actuality (regardless of what their formal JEC
job description says", then I'm not sure that an answer either exists or can
be easily determined. More to the point, I don't know that the answer to that
is particularly interesting, largely because the set of people meeting those
criteria may not even among themselves agree that they are all "managers".

I think what needs to be found out is merely the last portion of this - i.e.
how many people actually have people management responsibility (complete
with JP&R, salary planning, disciplinary authority, etc.) As far as I'm
concerned, once you have this number (call it N), you subtract it from
the total population to arrive at a difference (call it M). M is the number
of individual contributors - now, see, I don't particularly care what
their title or job description might be - if they aren't people managers
they must be IC's (or what else are they? Dead wood?). I think there would
be pretty general agreement from any and all camps that these N people
are "managers".

Now, the number N is not impossible to arrive at. As an example, every US
employee has an Employee Data Change Form or EDCF which is maintained
by someone in their management chain (or the CC secretary). This form
includes things like date of hire, date of last increase, who to contact
in case of an emergency, etc. It also has a box entitled "supervisor",
i.e. the person whom that employee reports directly to. Now, in my
simplistic view of this situation, N is the total number of people whose
name appears in these boxes. If you don't appear in this box ever,
on anybody's EDCF, you don't have people management responsibility (see above).
Likewise, as another example, anyone, who, on the SMS (Salary Management System)
can form a collection of employees, constitutes a member of the number N. If you
can't form a collection, you have no direct reports, ergo as before.

The next question is what ratio is of interest. I see two possibilities.
One is the ratio of managers to individual contributors, which would simply
be N:M, but I'm not sure I find that number to be particularly interesting
since it applies all of the management hierarchy to the entire spread
of IC's and doesn't really represent anything that I can comprehend
right off the bat. Of perhaps more interest is a third number, call it
L, which is all people who are direct reports of someone else - this one
is easy - it's DEC's population less 1 (KO). The ratio N:L is the one
that I find generally useful. I'd like to know specifically what N:L is
for the corporation. Knowing that, I could look at any individual
working group (i.e. manager and his/her direct reports) and easily see
how they matched up to "corporate standards".

I will admit I agree with a previous response which stated that depending
on the area and the type of work, the ratio does, and should, differ.

-Jack

    I don't know if this is worth anything, but:
    
    The other day, I realized that there are six people between me and
    K.O., not counting project leaders, but including my supervisor. 
    That's seven levels of management on top of me, where K.O. is the
    highest level of management.
    
    When I've mentioned this to people on subsequent days, the normal
    reaction that I get is the feeling that you somehow need 7 layers of
    management to run a company of our size.  I wondered about this.
    
    So, taking those seven levels of management, and the last number I
    heard for the size of the company (125,000 employees - is this
    correct?), I started on the back of an envelope and ended up using a
    calculator with an inappropriate amount of power to answer my question. 
    
    The answer is that assuming that there is seven levels of management in
    this company, and that said management is uniformly distributed across
    the company such that each manager has the same number of direct
    reports (which we already know to be false), I came up with a number
    that's 7.8 employees per manager.
    
    As someone in a prior reply stated, Japanese companies seem to get away
    with 20+ employees per manager.  One would wonder how many managers
    this would cut out of the chain.

    re: .29
    
    As a point of reference, Tom Peters says the first line
    manager/supervisor should have about 75 direct reports.  This would be
    coupled (naturally) with a re-casting of the first-line managers role.
    
    Al
    

    re .30:
    
    Has Tom Peters actually managed anyone?  I WAS a first line
    supervisor, ONCE.  Let's see what that academic ass thinks after
    trying to keep track of even a dozen people on several projects.
    (Peters has some good ideas - but he can depart reality at warp
    speeds sometimes...)  Just how does he recast the first line
    managers role - including somebody that can handle 75 typical
    Digital software engineers?
    
    /Dave

    re .30:
    
    If any writers are offended, please note that I am a software
    performance analyst, so I don't do, teach, OR write.  I'm even
    lower - a CRITIC!
    
    /Dave

    re: .31
    
    Mainly through the use of self-managing teams.  I think everyone agrees
    that if you continue to manage work in the same manner it's done today, 
    there is no way someone can supervise 75 people.
    
    Al
    

    re .31 re .30
    
>   Has Tom Peters actually managed anyone?  I WAS a first line
>   supervisor, ONCE.  Let's see what that academic ass thinks after
>   trying to keep track of even a dozen people on several projects.
>   (Peters has some good ideas - but he can depart reality at warp
>   speeds sometimes...)  Just how does he recast the first line
>   managers role - including somebody that can handle 75 typical
>   Digital software engineers?

    I like Peters a lot (after all we sort of share names, and my boss does
    sometimes think I depart reality at warp speed :-), and I tend to agree.
    You would have to delegate enough work that, at some point, it becomes
    a matter of semantics whether someone is a "manager" or a "supervisor."

    I can see managers being more effective and being able to handle larger
    amounts of people with more administrative help. When I was a PSS
    (software consulting manager), I couldn't have "administrated" 12-14
    people without my secretary (she was a lot more than that).

    The most serious problem about our levels of management, honestly, is
    the hierarchical means of communication. If there is a memo which has to
    go to "everyone", well, damn it, have a list with every employee's name
    on it! Then everyone gets it, and you don't get three copies two, three,
    or four weeks after the original was sent out. Going "up", we need to
    encourage people to send mail directly to everyone who needs to know the
    information, not just to their supervisor, who puts a cover on it and
    sends it to their manager, who puts a cover on it and... and that this
    isn't people _side-stepping_ the process or pricking holes in some
    manager's bottle-necking control & power grab.

    Look, we all know that doing things "through channels" (i.e., multiple
    forwardings of mail, etc.) gets in the way of being responsive to an
    issue. So, informally, we use notes, VAXmail, and other means to get
    right to the person we need to contact, then back-fill the process. Let's
    stop using corporate E-mail as back-fill and let's start using it to get
    work done!

    Oops, I see a soapbox in my future...

    /(the other) Peters

    re. managing 75 employees
    
    You don't have to go outside of Digital to see an example of this.
    Those of you in the GMA could take some lessons from David Stone.
    When he was here he had about 75 direct reports at one time.  He seemed
    to handle this with ease...plenty of time to read his mail, follow
    notes, etc.  And always available to meet with individual contributors.
    The issue has to do with style, competancy, and motivation.
    
    -dinesh.

re: .33, "self-managing teams"

Such a concept is a red herring in this discussion.
If the focus on how many managers we have is based on the desire
to see how efficiently we are working, then self-managing teams
is NOT the way to better efficiency.
How much time would each of the team members have to devote to 
team management?  If only an hour a week, then we have the equivalent
of two person weeks effort coming out of the 75 person group.
Without a good hierarchy of responsibility in the self-managed team
(which smacks of de facto supervisory assignment right away),
I expect that an hour a DAY is a more reasonable estimate.
A self managing team without supervisors is management by committee
(virtually by definition), with its inherent inefficiencies and lack
of authority and responsibility.

A homogenious task with a fairly stable work load done by a large group
might be self-manageable, even for a team of 75 people or more.
A shifting work load with lots of diversity and more complex 
interdependencies needs specific management attention, whether the work
is done by 5 people or 100.

- tom]

As a manager of engineers, I owe my direct reports a comprehensive, well thought
out, and complete performance review twice a year. The reviews in our group tend
to average around 15 pages of commentary, not template. They are very extensive
with respect to accomplishments, personal goals, work plans, evaluation of
demonstrated abilities, career growth plans, training plans, observations
regarding weaknesses and strengths, etc., etc. 

Each of my direct reports averages about 1.5 days once every six months
preparing input for me (depending on how "into it" they get). I then spend
anywhere from 1 to 2 days working with the review in preparation to discuss
and finalize it with the employee.

At 75 direct reports, with reviews due twice a year, I would be spending
somewhere between 57% and 104% of a man year doing reviews. Should I be doing
anything else? (Well, I know I'm at least expected to.)

Could this be "streamlined"? Probably (God knows a lot of my direct reports
would like to see same happen!) Should it be? I'm not sure. I kind of think
that a good employee deserves a day or two of my concerted effort every six
months to concentrate on their performance. I can handle this nicely for
less than 25 people. I don't think I can handle it at all for 75. I wonder
how David Stone managed?

-Jack

PS. I've seen the "2-paragraph" performance reviews done in some organizations.
I don't buy 'em. No one that I'd ever work for would get by giving me one of
them. I deserve better than that, too.

Oh - I forgot to mention. I know Demming says you shouldn't do performance
reviews. I've yet to understand how that would/could work. I also don't
see it ever happening in DEC.

-Jack

    re -1,
    
    Yup! PAs are necessary and it's nice to have managers who keep up with
    them without having to be reminded that a PA is 1, 2, or 3 months late.
    
    How many people can a manager effectively supervise? I think it depends
    on the manager.  If he/she is truly interested in the growth and
    development of the people being "managed" then probably that type of
    manager could handle more than average.  It's those that are interested
    in empire construction that fail the test.
    
    I'm a techy-type but several years ago I completed an MBA and one of
    the managerial topics that remained with me since then was the concept
    of a knowledge worker and the impact the knowledge worker would have on
    corporate organizations.  The gist of the concept is that the knowledge
    worker requires very little managerial interaction.  Programmers were
    singled out as prime examples of knowledge workers.  The knowledge
    worker knows his/her job and knows what needs to be done on a day to
    day (or longer) basis.  As was mentioned 1 or 2 notes back, most knowledge 
    workers may only interact with their manager during a scheduled PA (which 
    makes the PA doubly important) or when a problem arises that the worker 
    can't resolve.  This should lead to a flattened organization structure with
    more direct reports to each manager, however, I'll have to agree that
    75 seems a bit much!  It would really take a unique individual to
    handle 75, but it should still be left up to the abilities of the
    individual (there are some unique ones around).  If they can handle the 
    load effectively then they should be given the responsibility.  Just an
    opinion.
    
    From my perspective, thank God there are technical careers or we would
    ALL have to be in management! 8^)
    
    Cheers,
    
    Cody

re: .37

I guess you've just shown us another difference between "Engineering" and
the "Field".

Out here in the field, there is apparently a required template that the
employee's manager fills out for the review.  It has some room for commentary
and most managers seek the employee's input prior to doing the review.

Of course, there are those of the opinion that performance reviews are just
a formality, given that salary planning is done months in advance, your
performance doesn't seem to affect the amount of the raise more than +/- 1%,
and as a manager once said, "There shouldn't be any surprises during your
performance review.  If there is a problem, we will talk about it when it
happens.  If I'm managing properly, when you do something good, you will hear
about it right then.  It doesn't make any sense to wait until your review to
give you feedback.  It should be a continuous process."

Bob

    How many GOOD managers does Digital have or need?  Have?  I don't know. 
    Need? A lot more.
    
    Regardless of what's currently in vogue for the right number of
    management layers, it seems to me that there are at least two critical
    layers, the 1st level and the highest level.
    
    The highest level executives are important because they set the corporate
    vision, direction, & strategy.  The 1st level managers, or line managers,
    are important because they're the ones who manage the day-to-day business. 
    I'm not sure who's more important to the success of a company,
    but a bad senior level executive can certainly do more damage to a 
    company than a bad line manager can.  
    
    I'd like to think we have excellent people up top, but you know, I'm
    not convinced yet.....
    
     
    

    As the writer who entered my group's headcount, no, I don't take
    offense at the comments.  I can't speak for my managers, though 8^)
    
    Some have suggested 75 workers per manager is about right.  As part of
    a 74-person work group, I feel qualified to comment on that.  With the
    level of administrative paperwork involved with management, I don't see
    that as anything like a realistic figure.  In addition to the
    performance reviews and salary plans mentioned by previous respondents,
    in my group we also have yearly job plans and yearly "individual
    development plans," which are supposed to be five-year plans.  So we
    have, just for those items,
    
      (salary plan + perf rev + job plan + IDP) x 75 = 300 documents/year
    
    How about status reports?  Let's be kind and require only one per
    person per month:
    
      12 status reports/person x 75 = 900 status reports/year
    
    In addition, the one manager postulated for 75 of us would also be the
    cost center manager, responsible for drawing up, obtaining, and
    spending the budget.  The CC manager would also work with Finance,
    Personnel, Accounting, Legal, Facilities, outside vendors, and his or
    her own management.  That takes time too.
    
    By the way, our group generated over 10,000 pages of customer
    documentation last year.  Our supervisors are responsible for the
    quality of our work as much as we are, so it would behoove this
    postulated manager to at least read those 10,000 pages.  Even if we put
    it all on-line, the information is still there in the same volume.
    
    Of course, if any problems erupt that require management attention --
    no, I mean real problems, like serious illness, employee malfeasance,
    or performance problems -- the manager would need to attend to that as
    well.
    
    There are only 250 working days in a year.  That's 1+ plan, 3+ status
    reports, and 40 pages of documentation to review each and every working
    day.  I don't know, but I think that postulated manager would have to
    hire a secretary.
    
    Seriously, the Japanese supervisors we hear about who manage 200 people
    clearly do it in a matter utterly difference from what we are used to
    in the US.  I'm not saying it can't be done; I am saying it can't be
    done the way I observe managers/supervisors working here (and in other
    companies).

    re: .39
    
    Trying to manage programers is like trying to herd cats.  :-}
    

    Just for fun I took a look at several DEC orgs when I joined and
    I came to the conclusion that matrix management was pretty bad.
    What it did was mask the fact that there were not enough workers
    to go around all the managers. That is why, when you do the count, there
    are too many managers!.
    
    Follow the thought a little further and you will see that two masters
    makes everything worse for the worker. Twice the opportunity to
    fail and be spotted doing it.
                                                    
    Solution. Ban matrix management. Fund the areas that are necessary
    scrap those that are not.
    
    Post this note if I dare?. Sure!, with one closing question. 
    
    "Is the complaint that we have too many managers, or is it that we are 
     managed too much?!".
    
    Eric H.
                                                     

    Someone sent me a list titled "KEY CONTACTS SENIOR MANAGEMENT". It
    was interesting but because of length (>1000 lines) and the fact that
    I don't know who did the original list I will not post it here. I
    did play with it to see how many VPs I could find. I found 60 but I
    know, from LIVEWIRE, that a 61st was promoted since the effective
    date of the list. That's better then 1 VP per 2,000 employees. Anyone
    know how many VPs other companies our size have?

    			Alfred

    This is a sore spot with me. I dare say,we have more than one VP whose
    very title indicates a job that could and should be done by someone
    who is,shall we say,a bit lower on the totem-pole. Then,still,we have
    umpteen senior managers who fit the above description too.
    
    Ken

re .45:

The number of VPs varies from industry to industry.  Banks are known for
having lots of VPs.  My first job was with a money center bank.  If I'd
stayed for five years or so, I probably would have been some sort of VP,
even though I wouldn't have been a manager.

    re .44
    
    >Follow the thought a little further and you will see that two masters
    >makes everything worse for the worker. Twice the opportunity to
    >fail and be spotted doing it.
                                                    
    >Solution. Ban matrix management. ...
    
    Well, I guess I'll have to defend matrix management :-)
    
    Try to imagine the following:
    
    	a) Riding a horse with only one rein!
    	b) Driving a car which can only turn right (left)!
    	c) Running a company that only knows how to grow!
    
    Any business has to satisfy many criteria to be successful.  Luckily,
    the customer is the agent of many, but not all of them.
    
    
    >Fund the areas that are necessary, scrap those that are not.
                             ---------  (?)
    
    I wish I was smart enough to make that judgement.  Do you really
    believe there is anyone in Digital who *knows* what is necessary or
    *could* know if they put their mind to it?  *I don't!*
    
    With 120k people, scattered over the entire globe, doing product
    design, manufacture, sales, a thousand kinds of administrivia (some
    needed, I assume), there is no omniscient leader to follow.
    
    Ken and Jack and Win and the rest of the top management are human
    beings just like you and I, with all the normal limitations that we
    folks have.  They do have some advantages over the rest of us, but they
    *ain't gods*.
    
    *All* decisions *must* be delegated down to a level where the decider
    has detailed information.  The hidden inefficiency of the large
    organization is that the decider may have his/her own agenda, different
    from that of the top management!
    
    SUMMARY:
    
    	Matrix management is part of the solution, not the cause of our
    problems, not because its *good*, but because it can handle the
    complexity that a hierarchical organization can't.
    
    
    Regards,
    
    Dick

    Your analogy of riding a horse with one rein is not correct.  Matrix
    management is having two people ride the horse--each in charge of one
    rein.  This, in itself, is almost guaranteed to lead to confusion.  
    Add the fact that a horse is not a machine, but a sensitive animal 
    with its own ideas about where it wants or needs to go and its own 
    feelings about being jerked around, and you're almost guaranteed a 
    disaster.  Riding and driving traditionally maintains one rider/driver
    to a horse or team of horses...although there may be other passengers
    along for the ride.

    The analogy fails if you believe there are enough managers in this
    company capable of meeting more than one goal at a time.  On the basis
    of extensive observation, I believe the opposite.  Most of our middle
    and upper-middle managers work to be successful at only one of the
    goals of their organization  (revenue, delivery, quality, service,
    cost) and let the rest of the metrics go to h***.
    
    Middle managers in the matrix are not the drivers, they are the reins
    by which executive committee (ko et al) drive the horse.  
    
    Sorry, to start a debate, but this analogy *is* valid.
    
    

    re: last several

    Matrix managment can be a powerful tool. Because it isn't hierarchical,
    you can separate management of overall goals/objectives from management
    of point projects/programs which achieve one -- or hopefully more -- of
    those goals. This *dual focus* is the power, and purpose, of matrix
    management.

    As I said, our problem lies in applying the matrix where it is not
    appropriate, at lower levels of the organization; for example, staffing
    resource management in the field.

    /Peters

    re: .50  Thanks for clarifying.  It didn't occur to me that the middle
    managers were reins.

    Theory and Application is where I find the biggest problem with
    "Matrix" managment. I am familiar with a concept called " The Project 
    Approach to Managment". This is where you bring the right people together
    to get a project done. The control of the project is by one person
    and the resources are managment "owned" by more than one manager.
    The direct managers facilitate the project but do not interfere
    with it.
    
    This project concept works well. It is what many believe Matrix
    managment to be. It is not how it is applied here and that is why I came
    down on it. In our company I see many people reporting to two line 
    managers. That's like having two spouses!. Initially attractive
    but not very practical. Each set of demands would be reasonable but
    the sum would soon, (and does), become unacceptable. As soon as
    you favor one the other gives you a bad review and so on.
    
    I have seen the matrix approach used much more as a funding sop than
    a smart way to get a project done. So I will continue to believe
    that a less convoluted hierarchy and thus clearer chains of command
    will, (and does elsewhere), work better. I would hastily add that
    in a "Non-crisis" both systems appear to work, but when the stuff
    hits the fan the matrix system, as applied here, breaks!. Look around
    you and read this file if you don't believe me.
    
                    regards
    
    			Eric.
                                                               

RE: .45

A few years back, there was a problem with not enough people with the title VP.
It seems that a lot of large customers who manage their data processing at the
VP level were miffed when the Digital representative sent to meet with them
was merely a "manager", not a VP.  To defuse this customer perception problem,
many field managers were given the title "Vice President".

There are also some contractural agreements that must be executed by an Officer
of the Corporation.  Some people are titled "Vice President" so that they can
execute the decisions that they have been empowered to make.  This is the same
reason that there are so many "Vice Presidents" at banks.

--PSW