Do you bring bad news to management?
I want to talk about such an important quality as responsibility for mistakes, both my own and the teams.
One of the most difficult and unpleasant, in my opinion, solutions for a developer or manager (yes, yes, it is always difficult) is to find your mistake in the sale or in the upcoming release, go and tell the management - “I made a mistake. Error on the sale, now I'm trying to understand how it affects the users. "
This is natural and normal, and it should be, but feelings are always unpleasant. Moreover, as a manager, I want to hear such news from my team. Do not misunderstand me, I am not a masochist who likes to go to the technical director with such news, but if the error is weighty and can cost the company money, then getting such news is extremely important.
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Why do you need to talk about such cases, if you are a developer?
It would seem that a mistake, on the sale, needs to be corrected and in the next release it is easy to pour it out, why bother the manager?
Control (or visibility) over the situation. The last thing your supervisor wants is for the supervisor to tell him about the problem, and this can also happen if you “silence” the situation.
In addition, the decision “What is the right thing to do?” Can and should be taken in such a situation by the manager, this is his level of responsibility. It is possible that the manager will go with a description of this situation to his superior manager, or even to the owner if the company is small, or \ and the scale of the disaster is large.
It is important to assess how great the consequences of mistakes are.
Just imagine. The financial system found an error that relates to the settlement between customers and the company. You can also estimate the scale of the error in numbers - right? Were mistaken a little, and at 1% of clients not 5 rubles, but 5 rubles 15 kopecks were written off?
In this 1% of clients, by coincidence (the law of a sandwich or something else there), a large client who tests your application can get into, while on small volumes. Everyone has mistakes, but it’s very important how the system works and the company works them out.
Different approaches lead to very different results.
In such situations, the company bears not so much money (although sometimes they, too), as reputational losses. Especially people in a company, account managers, marketing, the sales department, in general those who are paid a salary for making the client satisfied can estimate and try to mitigate the reputational losses best of all. This is not an IT department. Most often, you may not be aware of such important clients testing the system, but your supervisor may have the necessary information to understand the situation and be able to correctly assess the extent of the problem.
Time to make a decision. As I said, maybe your supervisor will go with this information above. By informing him of the situation, you give him extra time to prepare for an unpleasant conversation.
Information is what a manager can manage effectively; it’s not necessary to deprive him of that part. You would hardly want to sail with a hole in the ship, because the sailors were afraid to report this to the captain? Yes, of course, we are not sailors, but our captain must always be aware of problems in the system or in the upcoming release in order to make the right decisions.
Now, if you are a manager and your team is screwed up (sometimes there is a specific person, sometimes there are several people) and you are going to bring this news to your management. I had a very good teacher (Thank you, Ruslan) for how this should be done and I hope I learned the lessons:
Lesson 1. Do not pull.
The error has already been found and it is very critical, report it as soon as you find out. Do not be afraid to disturb the bell.
Lesson 2. More facts.
Describe the most dry and correct. Remember you this news brought the team, try to save her face, you and your team are one for your leader. Tell us what steps you are taking to correct the error, do not repeat it again.
Assess the scale (for a critical error, you must first report, and then assess the scale and re-inform). Deliver information in numbers - count the number of users, the dates from when the error occurred, in which cases it worked, and so on. Check whether your VIP clients are in the list of those who suffered, give the list to the department that manages the clients.
Lesson 3. Who exactly was wrong?
I would try to focus on what happened, and not on who specifically made the mistake. You know your leader, he knows you, but he does not know your team. If you say “Petya Sidorov was mistaken for the 25th time”, he may think that “Petya” needs to be fired.
In my opinion, this decision is better to leave behind. I would not dismiss an employee who comes to me with bad news. Perhaps he needs to conduct training.
To think what is wrong in your process, that the error was not caught in time. In the extreme case, it is worth thinking about transferring to another area of ​​work, if the situation repeats and no process changes help. Sanctions against the employee should not be. So you tell the team to bring me news safely, even very bad news.
Let's return to the head. In my opinion, if you know that your supervisor is not ready to correctly perceive the bad news, you will have to incur the anger. Yes, I am not joking. Options:
Other.
In the end, some of the money you pay is also for the fact that you are responsible not so much for yourself as for your team.
This behavior often leads to good results, both for the company and for your career. I was lucky with the leaders and the news was safe to bring both in the role of developer and in the role of leader. Yes, and there were several times when I realized that it was safer to close the team and say that I screwed up, because they are unlikely to get fired, but “Petya” can. The manager should have some courage and lack of fear of losing his job, in my opinion the manager’s willingness to enter the market always makes work calmer and better, but this is a topic for another article.
One of the most difficult and unpleasant, in my opinion, solutions for a developer or manager (yes, yes, it is always difficult) is to find your mistake in the sale or in the upcoming release, go and tell the management - “I made a mistake. Error on the sale, now I'm trying to understand how it affects the users. "
This is natural and normal, and it should be, but feelings are always unpleasant. Moreover, as a manager, I want to hear such news from my team. Do not misunderstand me, I am not a masochist who likes to go to the technical director with such news, but if the error is weighty and can cost the company money, then getting such news is extremely important.
')
Why do you need to talk about such cases, if you are a developer?
It would seem that a mistake, on the sale, needs to be corrected and in the next release it is easy to pour it out, why bother the manager?
Why bad news to your supervisor?
Control (or visibility) over the situation. The last thing your supervisor wants is for the supervisor to tell him about the problem, and this can also happen if you “silence” the situation.
In addition, the decision “What is the right thing to do?” Can and should be taken in such a situation by the manager, this is his level of responsibility. It is possible that the manager will go with a description of this situation to his superior manager, or even to the owner if the company is small, or \ and the scale of the disaster is large.
It is important to assess how great the consequences of mistakes are.
Just imagine. The financial system found an error that relates to the settlement between customers and the company. You can also estimate the scale of the error in numbers - right? Were mistaken a little, and at 1% of clients not 5 rubles, but 5 rubles 15 kopecks were written off?
In this 1% of clients, by coincidence (the law of a sandwich or something else there), a large client who tests your application can get into, while on small volumes. Everyone has mistakes, but it’s very important how the system works and the company works them out.
- Backdating the amount and returns the money to the account? Does the report look like it was nothing?
- Silently returns to the account 15 kopecks and it can be viewed as a separate movement.
- Sends a letter of apology and a detailed description of what went wrong, where it can be seen in the reports, where the adjustment was made, everything is visible and transparent.
Different approaches lead to very different results.
In such situations, the company bears not so much money (although sometimes they, too), as reputational losses. Especially people in a company, account managers, marketing, the sales department, in general those who are paid a salary for making the client satisfied can estimate and try to mitigate the reputational losses best of all. This is not an IT department. Most often, you may not be aware of such important clients testing the system, but your supervisor may have the necessary information to understand the situation and be able to correctly assess the extent of the problem.
Time to make a decision. As I said, maybe your supervisor will go with this information above. By informing him of the situation, you give him extra time to prepare for an unpleasant conversation.
Information is what a manager can manage effectively; it’s not necessary to deprive him of that part. You would hardly want to sail with a hole in the ship, because the sailors were afraid to report this to the captain? Yes, of course, we are not sailors, but our captain must always be aware of problems in the system or in the upcoming release in order to make the right decisions.
For the head
Now, if you are a manager and your team is screwed up (sometimes there is a specific person, sometimes there are several people) and you are going to bring this news to your management. I had a very good teacher (Thank you, Ruslan) for how this should be done and I hope I learned the lessons:
Lesson 1. Do not pull.
The error has already been found and it is very critical, report it as soon as you find out. Do not be afraid to disturb the bell.
Lesson 2. More facts.
Describe the most dry and correct. Remember you this news brought the team, try to save her face, you and your team are one for your leader. Tell us what steps you are taking to correct the error, do not repeat it again.
Assess the scale (for a critical error, you must first report, and then assess the scale and re-inform). Deliver information in numbers - count the number of users, the dates from when the error occurred, in which cases it worked, and so on. Check whether your VIP clients are in the list of those who suffered, give the list to the department that manages the clients.
Lesson 3. Who exactly was wrong?
I would try to focus on what happened, and not on who specifically made the mistake. You know your leader, he knows you, but he does not know your team. If you say “Petya Sidorov was mistaken for the 25th time”, he may think that “Petya” needs to be fired.
In my opinion, this decision is better to leave behind. I would not dismiss an employee who comes to me with bad news. Perhaps he needs to conduct training.
To think what is wrong in your process, that the error was not caught in time. In the extreme case, it is worth thinking about transferring to another area of ​​work, if the situation repeats and no process changes help. Sanctions against the employee should not be. So you tell the team to bring me news safely, even very bad news.
Let's return to the head. In my opinion, if you know that your supervisor is not ready to correctly perceive the bad news, you will have to incur the anger. Yes, I am not joking. Options:
- We (the team) made a mistake and this led to ...
- An error was found in the code and this led to ...
Other.
In the end, some of the money you pay is also for the fact that you are responsible not so much for yourself as for your team.
In custody
This behavior often leads to good results, both for the company and for your career. I was lucky with the leaders and the news was safe to bring both in the role of developer and in the role of leader. Yes, and there were several times when I realized that it was safer to close the team and say that I screwed up, because they are unlikely to get fired, but “Petya” can. The manager should have some courage and lack of fear of losing his job, in my opinion the manager’s willingness to enter the market always makes work calmer and better, but this is a topic for another article.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/442636/
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