Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

So to summarize, to meet some arbitrary budget value, we are required to lie about what we are working on. Talk about a COBC issue. As well, if they don't understand the "true" cost of projects by assigning time appropriately, how do they expect to ever budget properly. This stuff isn't free, and systems don't just run themselves.

I can't wait to see how they manage this over the next year or two, when funding is supposedly severely limited. We won't even have BS projects (ours or others on the team) to divvy out our hours to. If they do decide to use sustaining as a factor for future layoffs, teams will be gutted beyond anything we've ever seen before. Death by a thousand cuts.

The last week in December our Manager told us we were not to code anything to sustaining, which was impossible to do since most projects were already closed. The level of stupidity in management runs high in this company. FUSE, SAFe, collaboration - all a crock of $hit. ATO is the worst area to work in.

At this rate, any teams that are limited to coding time against non-sustaining projects are likely up a creek without a paddle, hole in the boat, no life preserver, and a thunderstorm moving in. We don't use Fu$e on the TechArch side (thank god), but we're just as hamstrung being told to not code against sustaining and must be working on funded projects (that don't exist). What's even more funny, is the goals of our management which we have to strive to meet, yet those goals are purely sustaining in nature. Guess our bailing bucket has a hole/crack in it too! If she ain't sunk yet, it's only a matter of time. Learn to swim if you haven't already!

Tech Dev is a lost cause

Leadership looking for magic beans in Agile, Safe

Any variation they feels will squeeze costs, regardless of cost, grasping

Any funding is cut to show savings

Poor requirement to get lower HOM so can change later with no increase in funding or hours

The fuse approval,process,and strategy of not approving resources is a self defeating exercise

A total lack of direction from leadership

Time for some surplus and reorgs that always fixes it

It's so ridiculous to even have HOM/Estimates in SAFe. It's a fixed number of people in a fixed number of teams, so the labor costs are known upfront for the year. The features delivered are estimated at the PI Planning, and capacity determines what will be delivered. You're not supposed to scope additional capacity into the teams just because "but muh features faster" but here we are irregardless.

It is a real mess in Tech Dev....it will also get worse as funding continues to be cut at T and the Blue Pig...HOM/estimates are coming back 5X what they should be and there is no funding. There are minimal projects for the amount of resources so everyone is overcharging and munching on the little bit of available funding until the LPM's see the actuals then start rejecting folks from charging.....On top of all this and the known fact there is no funding in 2019; herds of folks are being told to travel all over the place to attend PI sessions as Exec Mgmt is pushing SAFE Agile....recipe for disaster....

The hilarious detail is that Finance didn't go through the SAFe training, only Tech Dev and a core group of business people. They don't even know where to start correcting course on SAFe because leadership didnt pay attention on where to start.

this whole agile thing is a joke if you are not going to change your cost model. they are trying to apply an old outdated cost model to a new development life cycle and it isn't working. everything can change except how we cost everything. riiiight

what a joke.

actually recording time goes directly against Lean management (agile) principles.... the scrum teams should be fixed. cost fixed for year. but AT&T leadership doesn't know what the heck they are doing. AVPs are dummies, s---ing up to executives... ask Haymons.

FU$E is a Tech Dev thing, used for tracking resources costs against projects. As a Lead Project Manager, we are responsible to ensure that resources only charge time actually worked on the project in order to control our budgets. Spend time listening to a call but didn't say anything? That's not chargeable time. Spend time figuring out a defect fix? That's your fault, so not chargeable time.

Here's the ridiculous thing - supervisors, Pit Crew (process people), and portfolio managers all charge to an Oversight PID that is pulled out of the project budget up front. RTE, TSM, LPM that actually provide oversight cannot charge to this, so the project is double charged for their time.

Wait, so project managers can tell how much you (a programmer? business manager?) worked on a project? Maybe I don't understand FUSE. Can you describe it for the uninitiated?

Right and I’ve always suspected that the “protected ones” have a heads up on the better non sustaining project codes ahead of time prior to everyone else getting notified about the cancellations

I’m the OP.

Should add- I have no idea if other groups use FUSE or if it just a Tech DEV thing. I’ve been in Tech dev forever.