Miguel's Blog

Deadline, Chapter 12

At the start of this chapter, Tompkins and his team go through some interviews to find people suitable to be in the new teams, since the old teams had to merge. There was a bit of a problem finding skilled people since all the skilled people had already been chosen in the previous interviews. In the end, every project got an A, B and C team. The A team was way overstaffed, sometimes going as far as having almost 10 times the people that the B and C teams. They were expecting the B and C teams to do way better than the A teams. Of course, the B and C teams had to work secretly since they weren’t supposed to exist.

After having that done, Tompkins received a letter from Lahksa saying that Mr. T. Johns was going to visit them. Mr. T. Johns was the consultant of a company that measures all kinds of things, but software in particular. Software can be measured by lines of code, function points, among others. In this case, they use function points. However,I also found that in more recent times this can be done through artificial intelligence. This AI seems very useful and easy to use. It can measure software size from natural language and can help you save time. Software sizing is really important since it is the main input when doing cost estimation. However, software sizing is hard, software is not a physical object that you can measure with a ruler. Many factors are needed in order to estimate its size.

In this case, they are using function points, which is a concept that I’m not too familiar with. I had to look around in order to find what they are. Function points are a unit of measurement that express the amount of business functionality a product will provide to its user. There are multiple ISO standards for function points and they were invented back in 1979 at IBM.

So, the guy Mr. T. Johns comes. He just moves and talks super fast and overwhelms Tompkins. However, it was all worth it since they have been able to estimate the function points for all of their projects. They also need to know the productivity of their workers, so they will have to do some digging in that, thankfully, the assistant, Waldo, is going to help with that.

Belinda mentioned to Tompkins that they could have started the whole process without someone else’s help. Maybe they couldn’t have used function points but they could have easily come up with an arbitrary unit of measurement that works for them. It probably wouldn’t have been as thorough as function points, but that’s because function points are designed to work with all projects. They could have created one that worked for just their 6 projects.

“If we hypothesized, for example, that Quickerstill was one hundred ‘Galoobles’ of software, then couldn’t we have figured out how big Quirk was in Galoobles? Couldn’t we have figured out how many Quickerstills in a Quirk?”

After that, they watch the sky looking for shooting stars.

Partial Reflection 1

It’s time for the first reflection, I know I’m a few days late, but at least I’m doing better than last semester. For this reflection I will mostly be covering the topics that I learned reading the book Deadline. The first partial covered chapters 1 through 11. So far, I have liked the book. It has a good combination between telling a story and teaching new things. Too much story and you wouldn’t learn much, and too much stuff to learn and it would get boring. The book manages to be interesting and informative. Besides being engaging, the book provides a lot of useful information in the area of management.

The book starts with Tompkins being laid off. This is a lot more interesting during the current situation since many people are going through this right now. Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky as Tompklins and gets a job right afterwards. Something that’s key is mentioned here, if you really want to take down a company, taking out the CEO won’t do much. You want to take out the managers in order to have a bigger impact, this goes to show how important managers are. Another concept mentioned at the beginning of the book is administrivia. Administrivia is what some may think management is all about: checking your email, doing progress tracking and doing project milestones. However, a manager is so much more than just that. A manager is about people, knowing who to hire, keeping your people motivated and managing people.

It’s until chapter 3 when we are introduced to the nation of Morovia. It’s also in this chapter that we first learn about the software management experiment. There are many variables when building a software development team: age, size, previous experience, how much do the team members know each other, time frame for completion, etc. Having 1500 people at your disposal for only 6 projects will allow Tompkins to perform an experiment. By having different teams performing the same project he will be able to find how to build better teams. After this, we get to know Mr. Mopoulka. He is building a CD-ROM plant. Here, we learn about how fear doesn’t work as motivation. The construction manager is not willing to change plans, even if the current plans won’t work with the deadline. This is because the current plans were given to him, if it fails, it would be the fault of the one who gave him the instructions. However, he can change the plans to some others that have a higher chance of being completed before the deadline, but if they fail, it would be his fault.

Tompkins is unsure of who to hire as managers for his experiment. He resorts to Belinda Binda’s help. She was the one who was supposed to have Tompkins’ job originally. She has a great knack for identifying good managers. On one occasion, she hired someone who only said “Umm…”. Apparently, other people’s eyes lit up when they saw him. This was a clear sign of a good manager. During another interview they see a woman who allows her team members to make “anonymous confessions”. In a work environment, it can be really hard to communicate your mistakes, since it’s a team effort, you are afraid that your mistake will affect many others. By having an anonymous way of communicating the team can adapt to these mistakes.

Next, Tompkins meets with Dr. Rizzoli. He is someone who has worked on similar experiments in the past and can serve as a good source of information on how to set up the experiments. They can’t just run the experiments without much preparation since the products actually need to be completed. Tompkins suggests improving productivity, but that’s not feasible. The experiment will start soon and productivity is not something you can improve in the short term. Instead, what Tompkins should be doing is risk management. A lot of time is lost due to mistakes. However, when the mistake happens, there is not much you can do, the time is already lost. What needs to be done is preventing mistakes from happening in the first place. You need to look at the first symptoms that a mistake is happening to avoid it. Next, Tompkins and Belinda get a hold of an Morovian ex-general. He has a lot of management experience in the past. One tip he gives them is to cut their losses. If a project is sure to not produce profit at all, cancel that project from the very beginning. Another tip is not losing a day, it doesn’t matter if it’s at the start or end of a project.

After that, Tompkins gets to talk with Abdul Jamid. Abdul suggests using a system for modeling hunches. Managers often rely on hunches, but they won’t always work out. This model will aim to measure those hunches so they can be improved upon. If two people feel unsure about something, how do we know who is more unsure? The model aims to answer that question. Moreover, the model aims to model multiple hunches. Putting all those hunches into a diagram so you can change it depending on if the hunches were correct or not.

The last part I read for this partial has to do with strict bosses. NNL had to go away, so now Tompkins is working under Mr. Belok. Mr Belok hates losing money and plans to put a stop to Tompkins’ experiment. Each day the projects are not completed, they are losing $250,000. Mr. Belok demands to cancel the experiment and make the deadline a few months sooner than expected. However, Tompkins is willing to put his job on the line and, together with Belinda and the ex-general, decides to join the experiment’s teams, but create new ones with the people they had left. Let’s just hope they don’t get caught.

And that’s what I learned this partial. During the next chapters I expect the experiment to start. Most likely, there will be some errors during the experiment, but they will be fixed and the fix will be used as a learning lesson. As of right now, we know what a manager is supposed to do, but we haven’t seen it in action. Among the topics I expect to be talked about next in the book are: handling an error once it has already occurred, dealing with large teams and how to deal with the pressure of a deadline. Overall, the part of the book that I have read is more like the setup before the experiment. It seems like the experiment will start soon and I expect the book to be even more interesting. I will finish this up with a picture of my newborn cats because I like them a lot.

Working from home

The world is in a precarious state right now. People are advised not to go out, even for work. In consequence to this, many companies are allowing their employees to work from home. This has been difficult for some people to adapt, the learning curve may be a bit too steep for them. Working at home is possible thanks to many tools, like emails and Zoom. However, working from home doesn’t go the same for everyone. On one hand, some people feel like they are more productive when working from home, they are more concentrated and have more time to do other activities. But, on the other hand, some people can’t help getting distracted when working at home. You don’t have people constantly keeping an eye on them, so people have less pressure and tend to slack off. Also, at home there are more distractions, no one is looking at what you are doing, you can watch videos on the side, play video games, etc.

Working from home doesn’t have to be detrimental for your performance. Many tips for working from home are given here. One advantage is that you can generally get work done faster. If you work 40 hours a week, if you are productive, you can probably get that work done in less hours, giving you more free time. The key is removing distractions so you can fully focus on your work, but you can take breaks. It’s not about sitting on your computer for 8 hours straight, it’s remote work, you can get up and take a break whenever you want. Taking breaks can increase your work’s quality. Also, since you work through the internet, you have access to everyone on the internet, not just people in your office. Asynchronous communication lets you work at your own place, but for more complex problems a Zoom call is preferred. There are even more advantages of working from home. You can wear the clothes you like, so you are more comfortable. You can also set up your work environment more freely. Saving money is easier when you cook at home instead of buying lunch at a restaurant. Finally, there’s no commuting, a lot of time can be saved by not going to work physically.

However, working from home is not perfect, if that were the case, it would have been more common previous to the current situation. There are disadvantages to working from home. It’s easier to get bored at home. Also, maybe your work provides you with a better setup that you don’t have at home, such as a second monitor. Moreover, if you are doing video calls constantly you will need good Wi-Fi. If 2 other people are watching Netflix in the house, your experience won’t be ideal. Additionally, video calling has its own set of problems.

Something that can often be overlooked is the security when video conferencing. The first thing you must worry about is what’s behind you. Everyone will be able to see this so you must ensure that you are not showing anything inappropriate. Although I have only used Zoom for school purposes, when using it for work, there are more things you have to worry about. For example, having a whiteboard behind you with confidential information from previous meetings. Something else is controlling the access to the video call, this is essential and can be solved by forcing users to sign in, using a password or having someone approve anyone who wants to join. Also, when working from home, it may be required to send a file to someone else, you must ensure that this transfer is encrypted so no third party can have access to it. Also, similar to what’s behind you, when you share your screen, don’t show anything inappropriate or confident.

As for my personal experience, as I mentioned before, I haven’t worked from home, but I have had classes from home. And I can say that right now I prefer classes inside a physical classroom. I feel like teachers haven’t adapted fully yet. I think I can learn more when taking classes at home when teachers learn to take advantage of the various benefits that come with this. I feel like just putting some slides on the screen and talking is not as effective. Something else that really bothers me are the times at which classes take place. Sure, classes are recorded, but I feel like I would learn more by being there and asking questions when I don’t understand something instead of watching a video and asking a question and then having to wait for the teacher to answer. In my cases, due to time zones, I will have some classes at 5 am, which is not pleasant. I’m not sure if I will even be able to put the required attention while being half asleep.

Overall, working from home and having classes from home is something that’s needed right now. We need to get used to this. At first, the performance might be lower, but if you know how to take advantage of the situation, you can be even more productive than before.

Deadline, Chapter 11

Chapter 11 starts peacefully. Tompkins was enjoying a beautiful morning. He was breathing the fresh air, looking at birds, relaxing stuff. However, things take a complete 180° when he arrives at his office. NNL had gone to the states and the man in charge was now Mr. Belok. He was very different from NNL. NNL was portrayed as a really evil man at first, but once the book introduced him, he turned out to be a reasonable man. On the other hand, Mr. Belok was very different, even if he, himself, said that he was reasonable.

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The first thing Mr. Belok did change the deadline. The deadline was a few months earlier than Tompkins expected. Mr. Belok was very strict. He stated what he wanted and wasn’t backing off. However, as strict as he was, he made some solid points, although he made some not solid ones too. The first point he made was the insane money they were going to lose for every day that the products are late. With all 6 products they would be making $250,000 a year. So every day the project goes over the deadline they are losing $250,000. Moreover, Mr. Belok wasn’t fond of the management experiment at all, mainly because he was losing money. Mr. Belok demanded that Tompkins joins all 3 teams for each project.

Tompkins didn’t respond calmly to Mr. Belok’s request. And Tompkins actually did many things that you are supposed to do in this situation. Tompkins explained his view of the project as well as gave some criticism of his own. He mentioned that joining the teams would actually increase the time needed, which was true according to his tests. However, Mr. Belok was having none of it. He didn’t care if the projects took longer. And this is what I thought was weird. The projects were going to take longer and he seemed to prioritize time over anything. The only explanation here is that he is just unbelievably strict and doesn’t go back on his word or he has an ulterior motive for doing so, but we don’t know this at this point of the story.

Tompkins, Belinda and Markov get together to talk about the matter. It all seemed pretty hopeless at first. Luckily, the ex-general comes up with a brilliant idea, Mr. Belok wanted all teams joined together, so the ex-general thought about joining the 3 teams, but creating 2 new teams. They had 1500 people to work with, more than enough to create 2 new teams for each project. Belinda also suggested handing in the first completed project regardless of which team finished it first. If one of the smaller ones finished it first (which is probably going to happen), they will just tell Mr. Belok that the bigger team did it. I think this is the perfect solution, I was not aware that there were that many free people available, so they should just go ahead with this plan. Sure, they may be lying, but Mr. Belok was being unreasonable, it’s like fighting fire with fire. Let’s just hope NNL comes back sooner than expected, since Mr. Belok only brings about trouble.

Deadline, Chapter 10

In this chapter, Tompkins goes to Rome and gets in contact with a lawyer. They talk a bit about Tompkins’ old boss. Apparently, Tompkins really liked his old boss. His old boss arranged for Tompkins to meet with someone, Abdul Jamid. They start to talk about hunches. Hunches are prominent in this book, for example, Belinda deciding if she would hire someone. Hunches are generally in your head, but Abdul proposes a way to measure them and improve them. And it makes sense in some way, hunches are data inside you and there are algorithms to make a decision based on those hunches. By putting those hunches in a model, you would be able to improve your hunches. They mention a really clear example of why this is needed in the book that I really liked. If you and someone else feel unsure about something, how do you know who is more unsure? How do you measure that?

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However, using the whole mechanism for modeling hunches may be overkill for just one, but the model is supposed to be used by dozens of them. To put this to the test, Abdul asks Tompkins some simple questions about a project with one hundred people in it that will take one year, will two hundred people complete it in six months? It may seem simple at first, but as they keep talking, this simple model evolves and includes many other factors, such as people quitting, the training period for newly hired people, etc.

Another huge factor that was brought up in their conversation is the size of projects. And it’s clearly stated that smaller teams are more efficient. A study done in 2005 revealed that a small team (less than 5 people) completed a project of 100,000 lines of code in 9.12 months, while a large team (more than 20 people) completed the same project in 8.92 months. This has a lot of implications. Sure, you actually complete the project faster with more people, but not by a lot. Not only was the difference small, but with a large team you have more people you need to pay. Paying 5 people for 9.12 months is way cheaper than paying 20 people for 8.92 months. However, this is not to say that big teams shouldn’t be used. The book also brings up that as a team works together for a long time, it will become more efficient and eventually become more than the sums of its parts.

The models won’t always be right, but they can be improved. Since you can now measure your hunches, as you manage more projects you will be able to improve the model with your new results.

Deadline, Chapters 8 and 9

Chapter 8 is all about deciding how the experiments will be carried out. Tompkins and Lahksa are discussing possible ways to test the experiments and how to make sense of the results. To solve this Lahksa has a solution which is collaborating with Dr. Hector Rizzoli. This doctor has done similar experiments in the past so he would be a great person to have working on the project. But they didn’t exactly ask him to work on it, they tricked him into thinking he was going to Latvia for a conference. And all things worked according to plan, Dr. Rizzoli arrived in Morovia and gave his conference to the 1500 workers there. After some days, Topmkins finally gets a chance to talk with him and ask him some questions that he has been wanting to ask him since he arrived.

The conversation starts by giving the doctor an overview of the experiments they are conducting. First, while they are experiments, they need to succeed because the products are real products that need to be done. The problem is that by failing they learn a lot more, but they also need to succeed, they need a way to achieve both of those. Topkins asks the doctor for just one fir the best chance of success. Tompkins suggests an improvement program that’s CMM. I didn’t know what CMM was, but after some reading I found that it’s a methodology for software development. CMM has five levels and as the levels go up the process is more organized and systematic. For example, at level 1 everything is chaotic and there isn’t enough documentation and at level 5 processes are being constantly improved thanks to feedback. However, that’s not a good idea because productivity improvement comes in the long term, not on the short one.

Instead, Dr. Rizzoli suggests managing risks because they are the things that take the most time. However, don’t focus on large mistakes, such as missing a deadline. It’s better to focus on smaller mistakes, and those are probably the cause for the larger ones. The best way of doing this is by detecting risks as soon as you notice them. The reason for this is because once a mistake happens, the time loss cannot be fixed. It’s better to search for the mistakes before they even happen. What I like about this approach is that I think that searching for the first symptom of a mistake can help you not make the same mistake again. I feel that if you look really closely, when you detect a mistake’s symptom enough times, you will notice the cause and be able to work on fixing it. Also, there should be a way to communicate these mistakes anonymously.

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Chapter 9 begins with NNL, Tompkins and Belinda starting to do interviews. They were still missing people, so they went to find more acceptable managers. In the first interview, the one being interviewed that he wasn’t the one being hired, it was the whole team. The team had worked together for some years. He was hired. This showed how the one being interviewed had a lot of respect for his team.

The next person to be interviewed was ex-general Gabriel Markov. Even if he had lots of money, he still decided that he wanted to be a software manager. Turns out that the ex-general had people working for an office that didn’t exist anymore, but he managed to get work with companies overseas. He had a lot of experience, he had managed over 13,000 people. One advice the ex-general gave was to cut your losses. This means, Cutting your losses means that you abandon a project that is clearly not going to make profit, maybe it will even make you lose money. I think this is a good practice, if your purpose is to make money, you clearly need to stop projects that don’t align with that goal. However, what I think is the most challenging is identifying these projects that you need to abandon. I assume that, on occasion, it can be hard to identify projects that will make you lose money. Sometimes, you only know until you have already lost the money.

Finally, there are two phrases at the end that really made me think. The first one is about not losing a day, not at the beginning of a project and not at the end of a project. At the beginning of a project you may think that wasting a day doesn’t matter because you still have a lot of time left, but you will probably need it later. The other phrase said that there are many ways to waste a day, but not even one way to get it back. So, yeah, you shouldn’t really waste time, it doesn’t matter the situation.

Deadline, Chapters 6 and 7

When chapter 6 starts, Tompkins has to decide how he will organize the teams and managers for the 6 projects he has to do. To prepare for that, he reads a book on structural cybernetic management. When you hear those words, you may think that it has to do with some type of futuristic management since it has the word cybernetic. However, cybernetic comes from the Greek word “kybernetes”, which means “helmsman”. This word was used to describe the captain of a ship, so that’s how it’s connected with management.

Mr. T realized he needed a consultant to help him with his work. His assistant suggests asking the person that was supposed to have the job that Mr. T has now. Webster asks Lahksa about this person and it turns out she’s a woman. Webster assumed it was a guy. This goes to show some of the stereotypes that exist. Thankfully, this isn’t the case nowadays. The percentage of women in management positions is growing.

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When he finds this woman, named Belinda Binda, it turns out she’s a bag lady. However, as the conversation between the two progresses, it’s evident that Belinda hasn’t forgotten what makes a good manager. She says that management is about three main things: your gut which is used to make decisions, your heart which people respond to, and your soul which allows team members to have close, warm interconnections. Webster originally thought that management had to do with your brain, but Belinda showed that there’s much more to it than that. And finally, she agrees to work with Mr. T, but he has to give her a shopping car somehow and there are no supermarkets in Morovia.

Chapter 7 starts off strong. Belinda just throws all the resumes into the trash. Since everyone was close by, doing interviews was a better alternative. Seeing the possible managers in person will allow you to make better decisions.

The first interview was with a guy that said that management was similar to the movie Patton. I haven’t actually seen the movie, but after researching him I found some quotes that I liked, such as “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”. The way the first candidate thought was that a manager gives out orders and the team members are like foot soldiers.

As for the next interview, they decided to hire the guy as soon as he said “Um…”. Mr. T thought it was a rushed decision, but Belinda talked to some of that candidate’s people and their eyes seemed to light up when Belinda talked about him.

Next, they interviewed a woman that allowed her team members to make “anonymous” confessions. They both knew it wasn’t anonymous, but it helped. I can see why this works. Sometimes, telling your boss that you aren’t going to be able to finish a feature by the deadline can be hard, but it’s necessary to tell your manager so he can adapt the plan accordingly.

When deciding what projects to give each manager, Belinda said that it’s better to give them a project similar in size to their last project and, after that, start giving them more challenging projects. At the end of the day, Webster felt like Belinda had done most of the work. However, Webster has sorted the resumes, which actually helped the whole interview process.

Deadline, Chapters 3, 4 and 5

Chapter 3 starts with Mr. Tompkins waking up in a room he hadn’t seen before, however, he had seen the furniture in the room. Apparently, his new job came with many benefits, one of which was that the job pays really well. After that, Lahksa mentioned more details about Morovia. Morovia somehow had fifteen hundred highly skilled software engineers ready to work under Mr. T. She explained that Morovia used to be a communist nation in the past, and one of the few benefits of being communist was the good education. Mr. T had fifteen hundred people and only 6 projects to do. That’s way too many people, so Mr. Tompkins has an idea of running an experiment. I actually found this really interesting. There’s so much you can learn from it: the correct size of teams, the correct time frame, the correct age, etc. While I find this very intriguing, it’s kind of like using the employees as toys or test subjects. But maybe the benefits obtained by the experiment are worth it. Does the end justify the means?

“It’s all yours, Webster. You have got all of Morovia to play with.”

At the beginning of chapter 4, Lahksa hands Mr. Tompkins a journal for him to write everything he learns during the experiment. Mr. T is also introduced to his assistant. The first project Mr. T has to work on is the building of the CD-ROM plant. It’s actually not a software engineering project, but he still has to do it. Next, he has a talk with the construction manager, Mr. Mopoulka.

I find the talk as a really good example of why fear doesn’t work as motivation. There’s a problem with the terrain so the construction can take up to 25 weeks. This is obviously not ideal, but Mr. Mopoulka says that the plant has to be built specifically how he was told, this way, if anything went wrong the fault would be on the person that told him how to do it, it wouldn’t be his fault. Even when Mr. T tells him an alternative with many benefits, the manager still doesn’t like it. This shows how people sometimes decide not to take risks if they don’t feel safe. However, avoiding risk can lead to missing out on the possible benefits of taking the risk.

“The problem is negative emotion often breeds other negative emotions.”

Chapter 5 begins as Mr. Tompkins is on his way to his meeting with NNL. When he meets NNL, he apparently recognizes him, but NNL insists they don’t know each other. Turns out NNL just straight up bought a whole country because he had the money. I find this a bit excessive, but if you have the money and want to then go ahead I guess. He actually said that it turned out good for everyone.

“It worked out well for everyone.”

NNL’s idea to make money was to copy the most popular product of that date. However, why would people buy it? Well, it turns out NNL is actually planning to give it away for free. NNL says he will find a way to make money and that Mr. T doesn’t have to worry. There are actually many ways of making money from free software. Your software can have a free plan, but include better paid models. Another way is to put ads on your software. However, what NNL plans to make is still a mystery.

Economics of Software Engineering: Analysis and Estimation

Previously, when I was going to start working on a project for school, I started by deciding the programming language I was going to use, how the classes were going to be structured, and what each member of the team was going to work on. However, after reading about the economics of software engineering, I realized that there’s so much more that goes into a project before you even do any coding. Maybe, the reason why I didn’t realize it was because the projects were for school, I’m not making any money from it. When you actually want to make money out of a project, you have to take into account many other factors. Using a certain library may seem convenient, but can somehow increase the cost of the project. The economics of software engineering is about making decisions about software engineering, but taking into account the business side.

Now, let’s talk about goals, estimates and plans. When starting a project, all these three things need to be established, all three of them are different. Goals are about business needs, such as generating profit, and how to reach them. Estimates consist of thoroughly evaluating the resources and time that will be needed for a project. Estimates are used to know if a project can be done within the limits of time, budget, etc. Plans are specific activities that are needed to reach the goals of a project.

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The problem that I see with all this is that a lot is based on predictions. Nothing is really certain. But that’s just how businesses are, there is no path that will guarantee success 100% of the time. That’s not to say that goals, estimates and plans are useless. They vastly increase your chance of success, but you shouldn’t be surprised if once or twice (or more) something doesn’t go according to plan.

“All three variables in the paradigm of software development for money – time, cost, and value – are random variables. This randomness comes from the underlying uncertainties in the processes found in the development of the software. These uncertainties are always there, they never go away, they are immutable.”

Deadline, Chapters 1 and 2

The first chapter starts with our main character Webster Tompkins, or Mr. Tompkins, or Mr. T, sitting on the back of an auditorium. He is about to be, as they say it, released to seek opportunity elsewhere (ReSOE). Being laid off is something real that happens often, leaving many people without jobs. There are many causes for being laid off. It isn’t really explicitly said in the text why Mr. Tompkins was a ReSOE, but I assume it was to cut costs, meaning that the company isn’t doing too good. Anyway, our main character doesn’t seem to care all that much since he just goes to sleep in the back. However, this sleep was short lived since the HR people were making too much noise for him to sleep, even in the back.

Mr. T is approached by a woman named Lahksa Hoolihan. It would be safe to assume that she was just another ReSOE, but that’s wrong, as she reveals that she is actually a spy from Morovia, an industrial spy at that. I have never really thought about the possibility of industrial spies, but it doesn’t seem like something from another world. I could actually see there being industrial spies around. Stealing confidential information could really give you an advantage over your competition. It is so beneficial that Hoolihan said that she would kidnap or even kill.

After that, Hoolihan actually gives us a bit of context about the story. It happened during the 1990s. She also mentions that 3.3 million jobs have been lost in the last nine months. That number is quite big. She also mentions that often taking out the CEO won’t really damage the business. If you really want to manage a business you need to take out the managers. This goes to show how important management is in an organization. As she said: the hard part of kidnapping is knowing who to kidnap, not kidnapping itself. Mr. T mentions that he remembers Lahksa from a management course where he learned nothing, he knew more about management than the one giving the course. He said management is all about getting the right people.

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Anyway, turns out Hoolihan wants to hire Mr T and she isn’t taking a no for an answer since she gives him a weird substance that puts him to sleep. And that’s the end of the first chapter.

The second chapter is a bit weirder, but offers a lot of information on what’s important to be a good manager. As far as the story goes, the chapter starts with Webster asleep, dreaming. He was walking, riding, sitting, laying down. This seems to indicate that he is being transported to Morovia, however, the destination is not reached in this chapter. Mr. T is dreaming of various things. The first part the dream were he is being transported, he is always besides Ms. Hoolihan.

However, the second part of the dream is a lot more interesting. Mr. Tompkins was watching a movie starring him. That movie was about parts of Mr. T’s life. The scene from the management course previously mentioned starts. The lecturer mentions many topics that are going to be covered during the course, but Webster doesn’t think that the course is about management. The lecturer leaves out most of the aspects that a management needs.

A manager isn’t just someone that checks emails, does progress tracking and projects milestones. A manager is about people. Hiring is really important for a manager to learn. The lecturer also leaves out about matching people with their work. As a manager, you need to know the strengths of your team and assign them work accordingly to increase performance. Another important aspect of management is building your team and motivating said team. A manager’s job is to get a project done, from beginning to end. And that includes managing people. The following video explains it clearly.

Mr. T, frustrated with the course, calls it administrivia. Administrivia are trivial time-consuming tasks, which was what the course was covering. A manager’s job isn’t simple administrivia. The chapter ends with the lecture scene repeating over and over.