|
|
ONLINE FEATURES
Book Reviews
BW Video
Columnists
Interactive Gallery
Newsletters
Past Covers
Philanthropy
Podcasts
Special Reports
BLOGS
Auto Beat
Bangalore Tigers
Blogspotting
Brand New Day
Byte of the Apple
Economics Unbound
Eye on Asia
Fine On Media
Green Biz
Hot Property
Investing Insights
Management IQ
NEXT: Innovation
NussbaumOnDesign
Tech Beat
Working Parents
TECHNOLOGY
J.D. Power Ratings
Product Reviews
Tech Stats
Wildstrom: Tech Maven
AUTOS
Home Page
Auto Reviews
Classic Cars
Car Care & Safety
Hybrids
INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | |
SEPTEMBER 23, 2004
By Burt Helm Software That Knows Your Every Move [Page 2 of 2] "NO THANKS." "Agencies in agriculture are fairly autonomous," he says. "Some project managers said they didn't want us having access to their data anytime [we wanted]." Others resist more passively. "Most people just drag their feet" he says, on inputting their data. "Project managers aren't used to having the oversight folks be able to pull up and see what they're doing at any time," and they have had to set limits. At one point Métier offered to integrate and mine data from Agriculture's payroll program, as well as from employee schedules and task lists. "That got a big 'no thanks' from us," says Stoltz. "There's a whole lot of data out there that's too sensitive." In contrast, Doug McVicar, senior director of programs at Northop Grumman, says he selected Worklenz specifically because it could evaluate his project managers. Northrop is using it now to help manage a massive redesign of the Defense Dept.'s entire human-resources system. "We've got dozens of managers that have to make estimates for each work package, [and] they are asked to estimate the cost and schedule up front. There has never been a way to capture the quality of these estimates on a person-by-person basis." FROM TINY STEPS... McVicar says many of his team managers had no experience with the onerous level of reporting the Pentagon requires, and some decided to leave because of it. Worklenz, however, fits perfectly into this type of culture: "It lets the government log in and see how their money is being spent, penny-by-penny." Armed with this highly detailed, task-by-task data, Worklenz can then make predictions. Using a concept called natural-language management, each task is processed through the equivalent of an enormous thesaurus. So a task labeled "buy stapler, pencils" would be grouped with a another task labeled "go to Staples" under the general heading "buy office supplies." The program would calculate the average time this task takes, and make it a step in a larger project. By combining thousands of these small tasks, the program creates an estimate for the duration an entire, long-term project and helps identify specific tasks, or groups of tasks, that are holding up the process. IS IT INTRUSIVE? In the end, top managers want to look only at the trends formed by the aggregate data, says Clark, though they could look at every detail of each individual's schedule, if they wanted to. "There's very little [commercially available] stuff that integrates real-time data" like this, says Kathleen Carley, a professor at Carnegie Mellon and director of its Computational Analysis of Social & Organizational Systems department. Carley's group is using similar tools to see how knowledge is managed collectively in a business environment. Though she hasn't worked with Worklenz itself, she says she's skeptical that any current data-mining software could really evaluate worker effectiveness with much precision and that the helpfulness of this type of software really depends on how intrusive it is. "Any of these things that look at [individual's] e-mail or timecards can be viewed as intrusive, or they can be viewed as management tools" she says. "Right now I don't think most companies or most people understand the implications." A NOT-SO-SIMPLE METRIC. Métier stresses that the software's primary importance is its ability to make very broad yet statistically grounded predictions for future projects, and grabbing personal data is just a necessary side-effect. "Most organizations are doing more role-based than people-based" evaluations, says Clark, and want to identify problematic steps in the project rather than problematic individuals. He admits that a lot goes on in personal work that can't be explained by a simple metric -- the aggregate is what's important. Workers can only hope that managers examining each and every task they do will remember that.
 Helm is a reporter for BusinessWeek Online in New York
BW MALL
SPONSORED LINKS
Buy a link now!Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
 Copyright 2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Notice |
Printer-Friendly Version
