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Showing posts from August, 2010

The Cost of a Chair

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The easy answer is "New, about $1000" for that model. Though what does it actually cost, or what is it worth, that is a better question which most accountants (and typically poor managers) will interestingly ignore. Though if it's a certain outcome you're after, i.e. healthy productivity of an individual (and team) then their physical environment can't be ignored. As any ergonomists will tell you, and here , many do. I find a common argument of "Oh we can't afford good equipment" or "We can crush another 10 desks in here, go to Ikea and pick up some tat and stack the programmers up" as actually absurd as it sounds. Typically from a mindsets where creative individuals are classed as cogs in a machine, there to be spun faster. The main counter argument is going to have to be proof of difference and a financial counter argument I feel. As is well researched it will take about 15-20 mins for a programmer to get into flow , where

Ownership and Responsibility

I find these are two commonly misunderstood and (some times purposefully) abused terms. Responsibility Ranges from been give it knowingly, or having it assume of one. Typically manifests itself when something goes wrong and is seen in the form of the blame game. Is usually passed down in organisations (where as it should go up) by weak management looking to "prove fault" in employees to cover up their (lack of quality) decisions. In a healthy and honest situation responsibility can be a good starting place for defining a role and calculating suitable reward for success, when the role is able to create and effect any needed changes. In an evolved and dynamic environment it is a shared understanding of the team functioning as a whole, a "burden shared" and all that. Though unfortunately rare. Ownership Tends to encompass responsibility with the added bonus of relative share of the rewards of success. Common misuses of this term are typical when employees are told &quo