Author Topic: Temperature checking somebody's workflow  (Read 1739 times)

Clare

  • Is in NZ
Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« on: 21 March, 2015, 10:01:28 am »
Does anybody have any idea what this actually means and what one has to do to achieve it?

(Serious question, Vernon has already done all the thermometer insertion jokes.)


Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #1 on: 21 March, 2015, 10:06:45 am »
My experience of the world of globalcorporategreedandbullshit is that the bigmoneygrabbingcunts set the 'temperature' unrealistically high then move in with the sickles to thin out the deadwood.   The temperature being some arbitrarily excessive performance measure or fifty against which all minions have to exceed to receive their shilling each day.


Clare

  • Is in NZ
Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #2 on: 21 March, 2015, 10:24:22 am »
There is no indication of target reaching in what I have been told. In fact all I have been told so far is to go and watch my 'buddy' doing one of their work processes and make notes on what it involves, I can't equate this to anything which would merit calling it a temperature check and am thinking I am missing something vital.

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #3 on: 21 March, 2015, 10:39:41 am »
Being generally sceptical about corporatebollocksspeak, I can only guess that its about assessing whether the person is becoming "overheated" in carrying out that workflow.  As in, how close to their performance limit are they?  Motivation for doing that could be about caring for your workforce, and not wishing them to get excessively stressed over it, but I suspect its far more likely that they want to up the "temperature" and push folk closer to their ultimate limits without quite burning them out.
Wombat

Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #4 on: 21 March, 2015, 10:54:04 am »
When people use corporate_bollocks_speak I ask them what they mean.

Sometimes it becomes clear that they don't actually know !

Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #5 on: 21 March, 2015, 10:57:45 am »
A "temperature check" is a measure of "staff engagement" done as a quick check, regularly, and on a scale of 1-5, eg:
Staff engagement Scores – Development of “Staff Temperature Checks”
to measure ongoing progress on a quarterly basis allows engagement to be better monitored. Such scores rose from 3.66 in 2010 to 3.69 in 2011, which is above the national average of 3.62.
The pdf above doesn't actually link to the questionnaire, but there's a link to it from here

I've not partaken of one of these personally. At my last place of work we worked in "sprints" which progressed via "swim lanes". Our output was measured as a "sprint velocity", measured in units of "Story points per man-fortnight". I kid you not. Oh and "story points" were assigned on a fibonacci scale.
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #6 on: 21 March, 2015, 11:20:50 am »
Erm, what a load of cods...   

Mr Larrington

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #7 on: 21 March, 2015, 12:35:29 pm »
To answer your question with a question (for them):

English, melonfarmer?  Do?  You?  Speak?  It?
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Kim

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #8 on: 21 March, 2015, 12:38:07 pm »
I reckon it's an instruction to go away and watch some episodes of Drop The Dead Donkey for research purposes, then come back with a reply in equally impenetrable management bollocks.  The rules of the game mean that they'll have to pretend to have understood you.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #9 on: 21 March, 2015, 05:05:17 pm »
Interlock brainspaces ftw...
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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #10 on: 21 March, 2015, 05:29:30 pm »
There is no indication of target reaching in what I have been told. In fact all I have been told so far is to go and watch my 'buddy' doing one of their work processes and make notes on what it involves, I can't equate this to anything which would merit calling it a temperature check and am thinking I am missing something vital.

How can a proper assessment be made of somebody by interpreting the notes of a third person who has no real idea of what is required to be objective?

Tigerrr

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #11 on: 22 March, 2015, 07:21:42 am »
Buy some cheap thermometers and issue them to team to wear. Then record the temperatures at work and send the data to the thermometer monitor. Fairly obvious I should think.
You could ask if the temperature check is within a full dashboard or a balanced scorecard or if it has sigma 6 interface.
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TheLurker

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #12 on: 22 March, 2015, 08:03:35 am »
A "temperature check" is a measure of "staff engagement" done as a quick check, regularly, and on a scale of 1-5, eg:
Staff engagement Scores – Development of “Staff Temperature Checks”
to measure ongoing progress on a quarterly basis allows engagement to be better monitored. Such scores rose from 3.66 in 2010 to 3.69 in 2011, which is above the national average of 3.62.
The pdf above doesn't actually link to the questionnaire, but there's a link to it from here

I've not partaken of one of these personally. At my last place of work we worked in "sprints" which progressed via "swim lanes". Our output was measured as a "sprint velocity", measured in units of "Story points per man-fortnight". I kid you not. Oh and "story points" were assigned on a fibonacci scale.
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Biggsy

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #13 on: 22 March, 2015, 01:16:25 pm »
Vernon has already done all the thermometer insertion jokes.

I hope they included a large rectal thermometer up the boss's workflow.
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Mr Larrington

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #14 on: 22 March, 2015, 01:39:02 pm »
Set The Boss on fire.  You can check his temperature from a distance using a gadget like the one the rangers use for checking front brake temperature on the descent of Pike's Peak.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #15 on: 22 March, 2015, 07:45:15 pm »
"Sprints" is a Deloitte favourite  :sick:
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

vorsprung

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Re: Temperature checking somebody's workflow
« Reply #16 on: 22 March, 2015, 08:47:25 pm »
A lot of different disiplines are trying to adopt the "Agile Manifesto" based methods that originated in software engineering into different areas, such as sales

In software engineering, small teams of 3 to 10 people will work together to make a computer system to achieve something on a short timescale

In large organisations the language and some of the often out of context methods of "Agile" are adopted into a leaden work flow often involving the interlocked goals of many dozens of people

Temperature taking in the original sofware engineering context is probably something like this http://www.leadingagile.com/2014/05/safety-check/ and it's a measure of how much influence the individual members of the team believe that they have on "the process"

In the typical large organisation that "Agile" has been shoehornned  into this question will be asked and the answer will always be "oh yes, I think you can hear me and things will happen." but in large organisations this answer is often given in bad faith.  Sorry to be cynical but frankly it's a PITA a useful thing being perverted by wishful thinking project managers