Change Board - II

As mentioned in the previous post titled "Change Board", the change process has become something of a kangaroo court hearing. In a kangaroo court, one of the most important things is to show the court its proper respect. Even if you're completely innocent and there is no evidence against you, the court will throw your butt in jail (even if they know you're innocent) just for not following proper protocol. Such is the Change Board, where the engineer trying to prove the necessity of a change is like a wrongfully accused defendant trying to use logic to prove his innocence. It's a lost cause when all they respect is someone who knows how to work the system.

I actually have to hand it to Duckface, the IPT Lead, who beat the Change Board at their own game the other day. Last week, Duckface sent one of his engineers to the Change Board requesting that three simple changes be made to one of our products. The changes were not approved because there is some ridiculous Change Board rule that if a change will cost more than X dollars, it needs special approval from Program Board - the Supreme Kangaroo Court of Change Boards!

Upon hearing the news that his changes got rejected, Duckface went back to Change Board the next day to plead his case personally. He wanted to avoid going to the Supreme Kangaroo Court and the additional red tape it would cause. His argument was that each of the changes cost less than X dollars, therefore the rule did not apply. But since he was asking for the three changes all at once, the Change Board counted it as one big change.

"Fine," said Duckface, "Then I'll just have them each approved individually. Let's approve the first change now. I'll come back tomorrow for the second and after tomorrow for the third." And he succeeded, getting all three changes approved without having to go to the Supreme Kangaroo Court. "That's bullshit" said one of the members of the Change Board, but he knew they were defeated. They were beaten at their own game.

But really, nobody won. We're just a bunch of idiots, happy that we spent $10 rather than $15 on a job that should have only cost $5… if people actually worked together. Aren't we supposed to be "one company, one team"?

Because the inefficient path can be less expensive than the proper one, I throw rocks.