Clash of Clans: A satire on process management

Front ImageA long, long time ago, in an office building a few cities away, a young graduate was introduced to his colleagues; nice, decent people, most of them looking, thinking and living like himself. It was a peaceful place, where emails were read in the right context, decisions were taken on the right arguments and problems seemed to be solved to right way. There was a mystical name for this place, called ‘THE department’: The most important place within the Kingdom of Compania.

Of course, as in any other fairy tale, there are bad guys: Other groups that called themselves ‘THE department’ as well; who claimed to have an ever higher importance than our friend’s Fred department. Luckily for everyone, the borders between these groups were clearly marked by cardboard and doors, by traditions and habits, by personalities and interests.

Everything changed the moment ‘the Project’ attacked; His name could be anything (usually it’s something fancy like Big Boy or Snakeman Angrydance) and nothing was known about him, only that he should be defeated on the fixed deadline of December 4.

All departments saw this as a chance to show their supiority, and in they came;

First came the cool department of Finance, analyzing that Projecto showed a lot of potential for revenues, in the case anyone came up with a good idea. After waiting for weeks for someone to come up with anything, Finance decided the NPV of staying was lower, so gone they were.

Then came Marketing; with fresh and original approaches, saying what awesome things we could do with it. How this should be made, they did not really care about: we will find out later, right? After (surprisingly) finding out that results do not magically show up, Marketing dramatically and chaotically decided to leave.

Afterwards, Supply Chain, stating that everything fancy was expensive and coming up with a standardized process; And what the client desires, is not that important anyway! Ending up with a great process that nobody wanted, Supply Chain found a logistical way to transport themselves out of there.

Lastly, Accounting told SnakeMan AngryDance that its records all looked ok and that they should put effort in solving their cash-flow problem. Nobody really understood, so Accounting went home as well.

So what is the point of the story?: Successful process management requires the skills of all involved parties, even  though it should regularly be said internally that all other departments are ‘stupid and incompetent’.

And yes, it will be difficult as people speak different business-languages. And yes, there will be times that you want to walk in the other people’s office to tell them to go f *ck themselves. But in the end, you will make the deadline….

 

 

Just kidding, deadlines are normally postponed to eternity. Welcome to the corporate world, newbies.

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