article-one:
Yet Another Lame Twas the Night Before
Ripoff
Twas the night before ship day, and all through the shop,
No value was streaming, not even rush jobs;
The part bins were vertically stacked with much care,
In hopes that the line would restart by new year's;
The managers fussed, they fumed and they fret!
While visions of quarterly goals went unmet;
Ma jumped on the phone and I to the net,
To inform all the stakeholders we'd be in the red;
When out on the shop floor came a series of shouts,
I sprang up from my desktop to check it all out;
Away down the hall, I almost hit Janice,
But before she could gather her wits I had vanished;
'Round the corner in a blur of fluorescent light,
I just had to find out what that noise was tonight,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a tiny gray man with a very large beard,
I'd heard of this guy, this expert, this guru,
Who arrives unannounced to help those in deep doo doo;
Then faster than a Florida hand recount cessation,
He deployed all his tools with much jubilation;
"Now Kaizen! now, JIT! now, Poka and Yoke!
On, drum, buffer, rope! On, DOE and Taguchi!
U-shape these cells! and knock down that wall!
Then value, flow, pull, perfection for all!"
Like magic, the staff moved faster and faster,
As they danced to commands barked out by the master;
Every incentive plan my CFO could devise,
Never lit a fire under these wiseass guys;
So back to my office and email I hurried,
Before Ma prematurely told the world we'd been buried;
And then, in a twinkling, I heard his knock on the door,
With manners so regal I wondered whom they were for;
As I maneuvered my chair, and was turning around,
He stuck out his hand, then he smiled, then he frowned;
He was dressed in wool slacks and a white oxford shirt,
And his clothes were all greasy from factory dirt;
A fistful of dollars he threw at my face,
"You do the same with each product shipped out of this place!"
His truth-how it twinkled! His logic so sound!
Could I convince the board we should keep him around?
He was older than most and not slick like the others,
They're more used to consultants who are clothed by Brooks Bros.;
He asked for some coffee and a dry-erase marker,
And painted a picture that grew starker and starker;
While apologizing for answering questions not asked,
The charts that he made knocked me flat on my ass;
He said the shop could be fixed, that war we will win,
But for long term health that's just where you begin;
Find others to talk to, your firm's not unique,
There are plenty out there with the help that you seek;
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
(Was it a pick or a scratch? God only knows!)
He left for the exit, his work now complete,
"I'll send you an invoice," he muttered, on his way to the street,
But I heard him explain, ere he drove out of sight,
"Increase throughput for all, Santa, and you'll have a good night."
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article-two:
You Are What Your Earn
Link: http://www.salary.com
An old time aphorism (or maybe it was
just my grandmother) once proclaimed: "You are what you earn." In an age where
professional athletes command salaries upwards of 5 figures per minute of work, it's very
important to understand the dangers of equating monetary compensation with real value. [Insert
ironic comment here about how teachers are underpaid.]
Last February we
linked up with Abbott, Langer and Associates, a consulting firm that conducts salary
surveys. This time we take a close look at salary.com, which is more like the Yahoo! of
compensation knowledge management, and definitely takes the bias of the employee,
seemingly trying to open the book for everyone.
Their site is very much a portal-concept, with news, special
articles, tools, links, advice and more as they drill very deeply into all aspects of how
companies pay and reward employees, things such as stock option plans, tax implications,
HR resources, etc. But, the site's most popular feature is no doubt their "salary
wizard."
It's just as the name implies. Select from a menu of job
classifications and an area of the country (by state, city, even zip code) and the salary
wizard will spit back a report showing the high, mid and low range pay levels of that job
in that region. Want to see how a different job and/or region compares? That functionality
is just a few clicks away as well, although you can only compare two things at the same
time.
We were curious, so we took the wizard out for a test drive. For
sample purposes, we looked at the following jobs and regions for comparison:
Job/Positions: Engineering Manager, Director of Marketing, Level II
Tool and Die Maker, and CEO.
Regions: San Francisco, CA; Boston, MA; Honolulu, HI; Biloxi, MS;
and Little Rock, AK.
Let's take a look at the results for an Engineering Manager:
CA: low 81K / med 100K / high 117K
MA: low 75K / med 93K / high 108K
HI: low 78K / med 97k / high 112K
MS: low 65K / med 81K / high 94K
AR: low 64K / med 80K / high 93K
Conclusion if you are an engineering manager: MOVE TO HAWAII!
Here is a complete chart of salary comparisons for the above
parameters, followed by some conclusory highlights:
Salary.com Sample
Query Results
Job Title |
Low Salary |
Med Salary |
High Salary |
| Engineering Manager |
All
figures are in the thousands of dollars (K) and do not include non-salary compensation |
CA - San Francisco |
81 |
100 |
117 |
MA - Boston |
75 |
93 |
108 |
HI - Honolulu |
78 |
97 |
112 |
MS - Biloxi |
65 |
81 |
94 |
AR - Little Rock |
64 |
80 |
93 |
| Director of Mktg |
|
|
|
CA - San Francisco |
116 |
127 |
157 |
MA - Boston |
108 |
118 |
146 |
HI - Honolulu |
112 |
123 |
152 |
MS - Biloxi |
94 |
102 |
127 |
AR - Little Rock |
92 |
101 |
125 |
| Level II Tool and
Die Maker |
|
|
|
CA - San Francisco |
42 |
47 |
54 |
MA - Boston |
39 |
44 |
50 |
HI - Honolulu |
41 |
46 |
52 |
MS - Biloxi |
34 |
38 |
43 |
AR - Little Rock |
34 |
38 |
43 |
| CEO |
|
|
|
CA - San Francisco |
314 |
439 |
601 |
MA - Boston |
293 |
409 |
560 |
HI - Honolulu |
304 |
426 |
582 |
MS - Biloxi |
254 |
355 |
485 |
AR - Little Rock |
250 |
350 |
478 |
- CEOs can live anywhere. Even though a CEO in San Francisco
makes 21% more than a peer in Little Rock on the low end, the Little Rock CEO can still
take in a quarter of million per year in salary (or as much as 478K if they are a good
negotiator). However, we're pretty sure the gap widens considerably when you include
non-salary compensation. Then again, what's the price of property in AR?
- Consider a job in marketing. In my experience, many
engineers have much better marketing skills than they give themselves credit for (or will
admit). Marketing functions consistently outpay engineering jobs regardless of the
location.
- There is a quiet dignity to traditional manufacturing jobs,
working with your hands, the pride of physical creation and accomplishment. The pay sucks,
however. Our poor tool and die maker struggled simply to have 50% of the salary of the
engineering manager in almost every region.
Know a website we should review? Send the url to gregg@roundtable.com
article-three:
Top Ten Product Development Problems at Kris Kringle, Inc.
...from the MRT
satellite office at the North Pole
| 10. |
Elves
returning from failed Internet startups grumpy about losing their ping pong table. |
9. |
Coerced
into bundling "Microsoft Yule 4.0" with every computer shipped |
8. |
Engineering
elves constantly at war with shop floor dwarves |
| 7. |
Customer
resentment from years of being labeled "naughty" or "nice" |
| 6. |
Santa's
insistence on gathering requirements through his "magic snowball" |
| 5. |
Website
still getting fewer hits than hanukkah.com or kwanzaa.org |
| 4. |
Benchmarking
program with Tooth Fairy Ltd. not as fruitful as hoped |
| 3. |
Attempts
to capture adult market draws away from core toy building competency |
| 2. |
Management's
insistence that entire organization match the efficiency of shipping department |
...and the No. 1 product development
problem at Kris Kringle, Inc.: |
| 1. |
Rudy's
brother Eddie, the brown-nose reindeer |
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article-four:
Looking ahead to 2001
A Special Note from the MRT Conference Staff
OK, the election is finally over; the dotcom bubble
has burst, you may have to work to make money again, and people are re-gaining some
semblance of sanity. What better time to get down to business?
Management Roundtable has some upcoming programs that can help you
get through the long winter -- nothing cataclysmic -- just tools, practitioners'
experiences, case studies, and insight into the trends that will shape senior management's
expectations of you.
- If you've got to figure out how to allocate (and re-allocate) your
time and staff to make sure your best-bet projects make it out the door, "Synchronizing Resources, Capacity and the
Product Pipeline" this February in New Orleans is an Excellent
conference to attend. The leading authorities on resource management (Don
Reinertsen, Mike McGrath, and more) will be there.
Keep an eye on our website for a special feature "Resource Management Horror
Stories;" find out what the most common causes of (and fixes for) a jammed pipeline
are, and be eligible for free conference attendance and other prizes. There’s
also a $200 early bird discount – but hurry! – this offer ends Friday,
December 15.
You'll also want to find out how to be invited to a special luncheon discussion with
Don Reinertsen.
- Not sure what's what anymore in product development? How innovative
to be? How to "process-ize" success and not be a one-shot wonder? How much new
technology to incorporate into products? How much to outsource? How to gear up for
whatever new turmoil lay ahead? Plan to attend MRT's best-of-the-best conference, Product Process Leadership in Cambridge
MA, April 4-6, 2001. Keynote speakers are Dr. Robert Kaplan of HBS (The Strategy Focused
Organization, Balanced Scorecard, etc,) and Adrian Slywotzky (How Digital is Your
Business?, Profit Zone, Value Migration, etc.) A special $200 early bird discount is
available until January 31, 2001.
Regards and Happy Holidays!
MRT Conference Staff
— * —
article-five:
MRT News - Free pdbpr.com!
As a holiday present for our customers, Management
Roundtable is opening up our award-winning knowledge resource, PDBPR.com, with one week of
FREE access to the general public this January 7-13, 2001.
This means for one week you'll be able to use your web browser to view over 5 years worth
of newsletter content, including case studies, expert interviews, and other content
focused on all subjects imaginable for product developers. You can find exactly the
information you want with the site search engine, or browse articles by target topic.
We're confident that once you experience this tremendous resource, you'll recommend that
your company become a corporate subscriber. Don't forget to tell your friends!
To access PDBPR.com during the period of 1/7/01
to 1/13/01, use the following user name and password -
Username: pdbpr
Password: 10701
For more information on PDBPR.com: http://www.roundtable.com/PDBPR/pdbpr_online.html
— * —
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