Sublime

“Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of managemen

Soon, non-operating people like computer programmers would be trained as conductors. Managers would learn how to drive trains. This would not only give the company flexibility, but office workers would learn what it was like on the front lines of actually operating a railroad.

Simple calculations such as these show that, with eight seniors, the firm would need sixteen managers and forty juniors. The proportions remain constant: one senior to every two managers, to every five juniors. Unless there is a change in either the project team structure (i.e., the types of projects the firm undertakes), or the target utilization

The dilemma is a cruel one. For efficiency and conceptual integrity, one prefers a few good minds doing design and construction. Yet for large systems one wants a way to bring considerable manpower to bear, so that the product can make a timely appearance. How can these two needs be reconciled? Mills's Proposal A proposal by Harlan Mills offers a f