Conference 7.286::digital

    The problem is the the books are cooked.  There really isn't a good way
    of matching the expenses for something with the revenue we get from the
    customer.  Everything is commingled.  Once everyone thought everyone
    and everything was profitable, now 200% markup may not be enough.

    Hopefully, the new Customer Business Unit structure is going to make it
    clear what are the profitable lines of business.  (The Darwinian
    approach I mentioned in another note)

    The core problem to me is getting past being mediocre in every class
    (and getting the market share reflecting that) as opposed to being best
    in class in a few key areas.

    Re: .0
    
    Make money????
    
    Couldn't resist.
    
    Dalip

    Stop doing:-
               Stop making computers(I am perfectly serious BTW) and sell
    the bits only
               Stop reorganising
               Stop doing things for free(like presales-heresy I know)
               Stop mixing up results so that any part of the company can
    play the leveraged revenue game(Question:how much of the current CBU
    revenue streams are directly related to the actual added-value of their
    existance-I used to work for Honeywell Process Controls and even THEY
    didn't kid themselves this way)
              
    Maybe this should be renamed START DOING?
    
    

    Folks:  Like "Start Doing."
    
    Let's get angry -- Let's turn that anger towards the competition -- For
    as long as I have been selling computers (Since the earth was three
    days old!), DEC has always been the one to kick because they never knew
    how to kick back -- I'm angry -- matter of fact I'm down right P+==ed!
    
    I'm PO'd at all the organizational paralysis we have.  I'm PO'd about
    the fact that we blew the launch of ALPHA by not driving hard on
    applications.  I'm PO'd because the competition has the nads to keep
    kicking -- Enough!!  Strike back!  FIgure out in youroown world how you
    can make a difference with the rules that are in effect.
    
    Just yesterday I told two senior V/Ps from a Customer that the word
    "free" wasn't in my vocabulary (Bottom Line -- T'was a long
    discussion).   I quit -- I'm done -- I'm not going to let anyone kick
    us again -- I'm mad as hell!
    
    The Street Peddler

    A serious answer.
    
    	We no longer make any of the circuit boards that go into our
    computers.   APO, GSO and SGO have all been closed.   All such
    materials are now purchased from external sources.
    
        We have reduced the number of sites doing final assembly work.   
    
    I'm sure there are lots more that we have cut, but my expertise is
    limited.
    	
    		DanF

   Generally speaking DEC does not design printers or monitors but buys
  them from other companies. Printers has been this way for a while and
  monitors just went this route.

   - Bob

In the case of printers, I presume DEC buys from them from some other
company and places them in our boxes in our warehouses and on our trucks
and in our catelogs - just like a lot of full service companies. Since
we have to jack up the price of *something* to cover these expenses and
if we jack up the price of the printers, the customer goes somewhere else,
wouldn't it make sense to just not sell printers? Publish a list of printers
that works with our stuff and let it go at that?

How many other products fall into this category?

    Well, with the LPS20, we did the design on the main processing board
    and Ricoh did the mechanical.  On the VT320 we did the design on the
    digital guts.  Other products have similar participation.
    
    Steve

re .7

>In the case of printers, I presume DEC buys from them from some other
>company and places them in our boxes in our warehouses and on our trucks
>and in our catelogs - just like a lot of full service companies. Since
>we have to jack up the price of *something* to cover these expenses and
>if we jack up the price of the printers, the customer goes somewhere else,
>wouldn't it make sense to just not sell printers? Publish a list of printers
>that works with our stuff and let it go at that?

I think you are acting a lot like an old fashioned DEC marketeer here.  
There is room for quite a bit of profit when branding is done, and 
marketers in many industries have found quite a few methods to ensure 
profit this way.  I am sure you have figured out by now that removing 
middlemen is not a way to cut cost.  This fallacy has lived on for way too 
long in Digital.  Let me repeat, removing middlemen does not lower the 
price to the consumer, in this case the computer buyer.

Why do you think people are not buying our printers?  Do you know that the 
advertisements run recently failed?  Is our market share falling?  I would 
guess (without looking at the numbers) that if we are indeed growing in 
share and revenue in the PC world, we are likely growing in the PC printer 
world.

Matt

    Re: .7 
    
    You appear to have a overly-generalized view of Digital's printer
    business. I wrote about our most recent ones in 2433.91. We don't do
    straight branding as a rule, however. We deal directly with engine
    vendors and with controller vendors when necessary and end up with a
    competitive products at competitive prices. 

    
    Stop tagging names of products "DECthis" and "DECthat"; let "this" and 
    "that" have their own product identity; let DEC, DIGITAL, whatever
    promote its corporate identity at a different level. Obviously we want 
    good products associated with our company but the product name
    shouldn't have to incorporate the corporate identity directly; I'd rather
    see something like "product x provided by Digital".
    
    - Jim K

we are ensured of copyright during the copyright search if we prefix a product
name with DEC. 

You try thinking up a unique name for every product we put out that hasn't
been copyrighted already...


John

	re .11:

	Right on! We should have stopped using the acronym "DEC" long
	ago, if we wanted people to call us "Digital". Result? All
	customers, analysts, press - even Bill Gates - call us "DEC".
	Besides, these names are BORING!

	re .12:

>we are ensured of copyright during the copyright search if we prefix a product
>name with DEC. 

	The fact that a good idea to increase our business may be hard
	to implement does not mean that we should not consider it. This
	is one of the last things to consider.

>You try thinking up a unique name for every product we put out that hasn't
>been copyrighted already...

	Everyone else in the computer world is doing this, so why can't
	we? Every day a flock of new products with new names hits the
	market.

	/Tom

    We still have trademark lawyers, so they can work a bit harder in the
    future and actually look up if names like "LANworks", "ELAN", "Alpha"
    and "OBJECTworks" are in use before we use them.

    The "DEC-" prefix is everywhere, so much so that a customer was curious
    to know if eXcursion was a Digital product or a buyout.

    Other companies manage without a prefix.  I think a pronounceable
    prefix is a curse.

re .9

Why do you think people are not buying our printers?  Do you know that the 
advertisements run recently failed?  Is our market share falling?  I would 

re .10

    You appear to have a overly-generalized view of Digital's printer
    business. I wrote about our most recent ones in 2433.91. We don't do

I don't know squat about printers or Digital's business practices in this
area. I used printers as an example. If you like, we can substitute the
symbol <insert_product_type_here> for each occurance of the word 'printer.'

OK?


Maybe that's why we're in such difficulties - we get so involved with details
we loose sight of the origional question. Reminds me of alligators for
some reason.

>                 <<< Note 2506.15 by ELWOOD::LANE "Zzzzzzz" >>>
>
> I don't know squat about printers or Digital's business practices in this
> area. I used printers as an example. If you like, we can substitute the
> symbol <insert_product_type_here> for each occurance of the word 'printer.'

And if I do, I'll end up with just as bogus a description of the product
acquisition/development for <insert_product_type_here> as you came up
with for printers.  How will that help us answer the "original question?"

- tom]

Getting back to things DEC could stop doing,  what about order processing 
and business info reporting?

We constantly 'enhance' the systems, methods and processes required to
satisfy a customer's order. We also add data to that process to provide
countless more ways to analyze the same old business dimension, just
because we call it something new, or a new manager is assigned to it.

It seems that each time there is a change to our management structure,
we are somehow compelled to redefine how we measure the same old metrics 
by giving them a 'new' TLA. We then proceed to reinvent processes to provide
the 'new' data element names, 'new' reports, 'new' whatever. 

At some point we build a 'new' system/data ctr to house all this.
Much of the data is redundant to what was already available somewhere else.

We also spend untold millions to enter/store/transmit/report/etc data that
is no longer in use, but has always been there. Then we spend countless
manhours reconciling all the differences amoung all the systems.

If you cut a pie into too many pieces, it becomes unidentifiable mush.

    How about we stop doing detailed project plans.
    ZAP!!!   BOOM!!!  CRUNCH!!!! &*^&%#$%(&^*&(**(*#$@@!!!!!
    
    NO, seriously...  I know that an overall plan is needed.  It should say
    what you are going to do and when it will be done, along with how many
    people are needed.  That's WHAT, WHEN and WHO.
    
    What I have observed is a kind of micromanagement/decision_avoidance
    process that uses planning as a life goal.
    
    Example.  A high level plan is produced.  They push it down a few
    levels.  Detail is added (note the passive voice).  the plan is
    refined.  More detail is added.  (time passes, work is not getting
    done)  A detailed work breakdown stucture is started.  More detail is
    required.  (techies are trying to start work but not given any
    direction because all mamagement is involved in the planning activity)
    The plan hits the 100 page milstone, no technical work has begun.  The
    first milstones are in jeoperdy because the plan is still being
    polished.  The first milstone is missed.  Something must be done about
    missing the milestone.  The managers begin putting together a plan for
    the replanning activity.
    
    I have seen this activity go to the fifth level... a skeleton for the
    outline of the plan for the replan of the plan.  It is a closed loop in
    which the instruction execute does not accure.
    
    I will be the first to stand up and say that any group needs a clear
    plan, with clear, simple, measurable objectives.  This recursive
    planning activity never produces that.  It becomes an end in itself.
    
    WE HAVE GOT TO STOP DOING THIS.
    
    If you can't put your plan (timeline and milestones) on one piece of
    paper, you have not got a usable plan.
    
    If every person on the project can not communicate the basic
    architecture and overall goals of the project (usually with the help of
    a cocktail napkin and a marguerita) to a complete stranger in under 15
    minutes, you do not have clear goals.
    
    Bye/
    Judy (who laughted out loud and got in trouble when they said they had
    a skeleton for the outline of a plan for the replan.)
     

    
    Re: .18
    
    I agree but there is one part of your point that I think 
    needs illumination.
    
    > required.  (techies are trying to start work but not given any
    > direction because all mamagement is involved in the planning activity)
    > The plan hits the 100 page milstone, no technical work has begun.  The
    
    Yes, this is a problem if the planning process takes so long and is
    so insular that technical milestones can't be met because by the time
    enough information was available for "technical work" (whatever that
    means) to begin there wasn't enough time to complete it according to
    the plan.
    
    In my experience, however, we must make sure not to throw the baby out
    with the bath water.  Some engineers see the "technical work" as the
    only "real" work and want to dispense with all else in getting right
    to the code.  The problem is not that we plan or that the plans produce
    lots of detail, but that the planning process is inefficient.  We need,
    as you assert, clear understandable plans with all the information
    there which is needed by those who must implement the plan.  No more,
    no less.
    
    I say fix the planning process, but be careful that "fixing the planning
    process" is not code words for "to hell with this planning stuff, let's
    do some real work and write some code."
    
    fwiw,
    Steve
    

    RE: .17  You said a mouthful.  There are so many reports/etc to satisfy
    managers it's enough to make ones head spin.  What is needed to satify
    the business, not to satisfy the management so as they have something
    to meet about and discuss.
    
    
    
    RE: .18  I agree.  It seems that we (digital) only think a project is a
    success if there are 10 100 page manuals that describe the thing (which
    was used by a bunch of projects people to show they were doing a good
    job.  In my eyes a good project is as short as it can be.
    
    
    
    Mike

>    ....  We need,
>    as you assert, clear understandable plans with all the information
>    there which is needed by those who must implement the plan.  No more,
>    no less.

One thing more:  The plan must provide an appropriate level of
confidence that it will succeed.  If all the tasks are correct, but
the timeframes are wrong, the plan isn't good enough.  

Finding that appropriate level is difficult.

   Gary

On the same planning theme, I would say we should stop doing Long Range 
Plans (LRP) every year.  I suggest an LRP every three years with a one page 
update every year.  A few years ago I was in ESG when a particular LRP was 
generated and printed on both sides of the paper.  Over 150 pages, pretty 
pictures, graphs, charts, and lots of boring, unsubstantiated predictions.  

It was sent to the copy center and we got back 100 copies that were missing 
all the even numbered pages.  No one noticed.

A long range plan in marketing often has a couple people assigned full time 
for 4 months, and dozens spending several people weeks over a couple month 
timeframe.

We need to budget and plan over at least a 2 year window, and probably 
three.  Our planning and budgetting schedule should come close to matching 
the development schedule.  Telling customers that we only make a one year 
committment to software projects but that they should trust us to supply 
mission critical products is rather short sighted.

Matt

    >RE: .18  I agree.  It seems that we (digital) only think a project is a
    >success if there are 10 100 page manuals that describe the thing (which
    >was used by a bunch of projects people to show they were doing a good
    >job.  
    
    plus we in DEC seem to measure how good a software is by how thick the
    document manuals that describes how to use the software are.
    
    \nasser

    Maybe we should go back to manufacturing our own stuff, writing our own
    software and outsource the managment of the company.
    
    

    re .25
    
    Now that's a REALLY brilliant idea! Perhaps we can send it into DELTA
    before they get TFSOed. Also, by outsourcing our management, it'll be
    simple matter to get them replaced (change the outsourcing vendor!) if
    we find them not quite up to standard. :)

Re:          <<< Note 2506.26 by ZPOVC::HWCHOY "Mostly on FIRE!" >>>

>    Now that's a REALLY brilliant idea! Perhaps we can send it into DELTA
>    before they get TFSOed. 

Too late :-(

See 2493.46.

-  David

    Digital should stop shuffling offices - 
    
    In my building (LKG1), some people are being moved over 3 aisles so that an 
    incoming group can sit closer to the conference rooms!  
    
    Would it _really_ have been too much to ask them to walk a few more steps?
    
    Is being closer to the conference rooms _really_ going to improve their
    ability to contribute to the bottom line?
    
    /dlw