Wednesday 25 May 2011

Singing from the Same Hymn Sheet


Back in the days when I was an IT Project Manager, delivering multi million pound projects (on time of course) we used to have a lot of jargon and management speak. It was the culture of projects, though personally I liked to bring people on board without resorting to that sort of thing.

While the phrase that heads this piece is kind of clichéd, it does describe in a way most people can understand, that when working together to deliver something, everyone needs to understand exactly how it all is meant to fit together, in order to reach a common and defined goal.

I was drawn to look at BrewDog's site, simply as it headed up the list on Zak's blog, which I use as a reference point as he subscribes to lots of blogs I don't and it makes things quicker. Seems they've employed a new Brewery Manager.  I was struck by what he is expected to do. It seemed reasonable, being to "to orchestrate the planning, production and packaging of countless gallons of BrewDog from the raw materials to finished product, every day." Quite a responsibility I'd say. There followed an interview with the putative manager "what sort of tasks does Nikola foresee filling up the rest of his day?"

“As a newcomer to the BrewDog brewery, I’m going to presume how my days are going to run but I think, in general, it’s going to be a heady mix of brewing, planning, tasting, meeting, some more brewing, deliveries, maybe a bit more tasting, driving the BrewDog-mobile and then some more brewing. All in all, a pretty cool number.”

Well I'm glad he remembered the planning, but otherwise more or less a complete mismatch. Better get the hymn sheets dusted off in Fraserburgh! Unless it was all tongue in cheek of course. With BrewDog, you just don't know.

3 comments:

Neville Grundy said...

I often found there was a mismatch between what my line manager wanted me to do, and what I actually did (or didn't) do. No wonder I never got promoted!

Phil said...

I don't know what's more worrying - the thought that they've appointed a Brewery Manager and he thinks he's going to drive the delivery van, or the thought that they actually want the Brewery Manager to drive the delivery van!

Tandleman said...

Phil - I see your point.