Antipatterns - Test

» I fear retribution if I voice my opinion when it differs from the majority.

» There seems to be only one way, “the company’s way” of doing things. 

» Whenever I try to question the status q`uo with my friends I am shushed to silence. 

» There are a few “moles” amongst my colleagues who seem to exist only to ferret out pockets of resistance and report it to the authorities.

» My company still dwells on successes that have been overshadowed by recent failure.

» It feels like my organization has no sense of urgency to try new things – even though the world seems to be changing around it.

» No one in my organization is encouraged to take risks – in fact they are discouraged.

» In my organization no decision seems final – each is subject to endless second guessing by various groups.

» In my organization when something needs to be done we have to decide which committee (not person) to bring the decision to.

» No one seems to have enough authority in my organization to get their job done.

» I feel like where I work there are too many committees.

» The managers around me all seem to blame one another all the time.

» I am afraid to take a new position in my company for fear of what I might discover.

» My predecessor seems very willing to let me take over a set of seemingly trivial problems.

» When I took my current position, I soon needed a new pair of shoes.

» There are acronyms used in my organization that no one can correctly identify.

» In casual conversation, buzzwords are used at least in every other sentence.

» When visitors come to my workplace, they frequently have to interrupt conversations to ask “what does that mean?”

» I use buzzwords in conversation that I really don’t understand – I only know where and when to drop them.

» Every other cubicle in my office pod is empty

» I don’t leave early for work hoping to get a good parking space.

» Some of my colleagues are wandering around looking for something to do.

» I rush to the bank to cash my paycheck before the utility checks are cashed.

» The Friday staff pizza parties are attended only by me and the maintenance guy.

» I find myself arguing a lot with colleagues about things that should be obvious.

» My colleagues and I spend of a great deal of effort undoing and redoing each others’ work.

» I feel like some of my colleagues are working at a different company – they just don’t seem to get what we are all about.

» In our office, there seem to be two or more cliques that can’t seem to work together. <

» Even in the face of incontrovertible evidence, Fred is never convinced that he is wrong.

» No one agrees with Fred on this theory or that – he seems to be out on his own.

» If Fred ever realizes that he is wrong, you wouldn’t know it because he admits it to no one else.

» Fred will only miss Star Trek reruns to attend “methodomatic” conferences.

» A few of us always seem to “save the day” at the end, but we rarely get credit for it.

» I am always wondering what kind of disaster our management is going to cook up for us next.

» I refer to work in similar terms as some kind of battle (e.g. “back into the trenches”).

» Every day I feel like I am fighting and not making any progress.

» I really don’t understand why my boss is hanging his hat on this new technology/vendor/process. No one seems to know.

» We all know that the technology/vendor/process doesn’t work, but no one has the courage to tell the boss.

» There are moans and groans whenever “methodomatic” is mentioned.

» When we celebrate successes, the laundry list of everyone who “contributed to the success” includes some who weren’t involved in the project.

» I don’t feel like I am being properly recognized when I perform work that is “beyond the call of duty.”

» I don’t feel that those who are shirking their duties or performing poorly are being properly called out.

» Salary increases are the same for everyone on a percentage basis, regardless of performance.

» My  organization is so “agile” that we change technologies on a dime.

» My organization is not one where reading technical literature is valued.

» I wonder what the technology du jour will be when the senior management team gets back from the  conference.

» My company does not have a long range technology plan.

» No one in your company is empowered to make real decisions except the founder.

» The board of directors of your company is stacked with relatives and close friends of the founder.

» The founder of your company arrives before, and leaves after everyone else.

» The founder refers to your organization as “his baby.”

» Everyone in the company wonders what will happen to the company if the founder dies.

» I don’t believe that anyone has been disciplined about rude or abusive language or treatment of colleagues and customers, even though this behavior is pervasive.

» Leading managers in my company are well known to be rude and sharp-tongued.

» Sarcasm, derision, and humiliation are regular techniques used in my organization for identifying mistakes.

» I have seen people brought to tears because of the way they have been treated or spoken to.

» Every new member of our team has to go through some sort of “initiation,” that is, they have to do menial work before we give them choice projects.

» Senior members of our organization never do menial work, even when it involves important projects.

» I don’t think I learned anything on the first few projects that I worked on in this organization.

» I like giving menial tasks to the fresh-outs (a derogatory term from someone having just graduated from college).

» There is a lot of backroom chatter and intrigue in my organization.

» Whenever an announcement of some kind is made, we wonder “what does it really mean.”

» There are some people in my organization whom I do not trust.

» I know there are some people in my organization who do not trust me.

» When I need information to do my job, I to shop around for the answer rather than being able to go straight to the “obvious” owner of the information (e.g. chief architect, test manager, etc.)

» Information sharing in my organization is spotty at best.

» There is some necessary information in my organization that seems to have been lost in history.

» There are acronyms that we use that no one can identify accurately.

» I worry that when I do something good that I will be criticized for making my colleagues look bad by contrast.

» I don’t even care anymore if I am doing things well – no one else cares.

» The word “excellence” can’t be applied to my organization in any way.

» Everyone is rewarded for an achievement regardless of whether they actually contributed to it or not.

» In any other place that I have been, my boss would have little of the authority and respect that he seems to command here.

» Even in the face of indisputable evidence to the contrary, my boss refuses to acknowledge that he is wrong on a major technical or business issue.

» My boss likes saying “it’s my way or the highway” whenever anyone disagrees with him.

» Few people seek out my boss for technical or managerial advice.

» No one can tell us the true cost of a unit of what we sell (or no one believes the proclaimed cost).

» It seems that the more we sell of our product, the harder we have to work and the less we have to show for it.

» Our product seems to be priced far too low in comparison to our competitor’s equivalent product.

» When we ask our management why we don’t raise the price of our product, we are told that “we are trying to be competitive.”

» No one in your organization understands the “GildedVeal” technology but everyone talks about it.

» No one can produce a well documented case of success using the “GildedVeal” technology (although there are claims that such cases exist).

» You see tee shirts, coffee mugs, pens, whizzy things and all kinds of conference junk with the “GildedVeal” technology logo on it.

» The vendor of “GildedVeal” keeps pushing back the delivery dates.

» A few non-believers (usually old timers) insist that the “GildedVeal” technology is just the old “BrownBull” technology with a fancier interface.

» My manager spends more time out of the office than in the office.

» When I need to see my manager, I don’t go to his office first. I go to his secretary and ask, “is he in today?”

» I resent when my manager is not around because I know it has nothing to do with business or he is deliberately shirking his duties.

» My manager is never where he says he is going to be.

» My manager doesn’t have a “playbook” of solutions for various problems

» Every situation at my place of employment seems to involve a solution looking for a problem

» When I ask my manager how to handle a problem, he just looks at me and shrugs.

» My manager gets very confused when faced with new problem situations.

» There is never any give and take with my boss – it’s always “his way or the highway.”

» My boss never admits when he is wrong.

» I know that if my opinion is different from my boss it’s better to just agree with him.

» My boss seems to make up his mind before he is even given any facts.

» Before going to meet with Ed you ask someone else “is he in a good mood today?”

» After an encounter with Ed you wonder what the hell is bothering him today?

» You find yourself spending vast amounts of time planning and scripting your meetings with Ed.

» You need to use the bathroom before and after you meet with Ed.

» I provide data to my manager and I have no idea what it is used for.

» I spend more time collecting data about X than actually doing X (for some necessary activity X).

» No one else I know, who is doing the same job I am, collects the kind of data that I do.

» I have never satisfied a data request from my manager on the first try – he always wants more, more, more.

» I don’t know why, but Ellie seems to be included in every decision, even in areas that don’t affect her.

» Ellie and the boss seem to be tied at the waist.

» I don’t know when Ellie actually gets his real duties done – she seemed to be involved in everything but her job with the boss’ encouragement.

» Ellie has been acting like she is the boss lately – she even has started ordering people around who don’t report to her.

» I come to work each day asking myself, “what now?”

» If I were to document a sequence of decisions that my manager made, it would look ridiculous.

» My company’s “strategy” is like no other’s, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

» I wish I understood what my manager wants to do.

» Doug has a clear vision of his goals, but he frustrates me with his disorganization.

» Though I will do anything for Doug, I am tired of our group’s failures.

» Doug is well liked, but he is not well respected.

» Doug’s group is consistently outperformed by others, even those whose managers are despised.

» I cannot make an important decision in the absence of my boss.

» When I need advice I don’t really want my boss’s opinion.

» I often worry that whatever I do will be second guessed by my boss.

» I really don’t know what my boss wants from one day to the next.

» Whenever my boss disagrees with someone too much, they slowly lose influence with him, but those that mindlessly agree with him advance.

» I know people in my group who pretend to agree with the boss and behave against their better judgment simply because “that is the way he wants me to act.” 

» I notice that whenever we hire someone new, my boss seems to look at specific features that emulate him rather than on the candidate’s relevant experience.

» We collect metrics, but I don’t know how they are used or how to use them.

 » I cannot describe the causal relationship between the metrics we are collecting and the actual use of those metrics.

» I can think of another metric that is more appropriate to measure what we want but we are not using it for some reason.

 » I didn’t know anyone was collecting metrics!

» Greg uses often elaborate behaviors to avoid necessary confrontations.

» Greg always uses an intermediary to deliver the bad news.

» Even though Greg tries to be nice to everyone, few actually like him.

» People take advantage of Greg.

» People disrespect Greg behind his back though he is polite and respectful to everyone else.

» At least once a week I ask myself ‘why am I doing this?’ with respect to some major task.

» I only work on “tasks” I am unsure of how my work fits into the bigger picture.

» I have no idea of what every one else around me is doing.

» My colleagues and I talk about being mushroom managed all the time.

» Much of the work that I do keeps me busy, but it doesn’t seem to contribute anything to the company’s goals.

» I never seem to be able to finish projects before I get asked to do another, meaningless task.

» I have multiple projects in play, but my manager has no plan to complete any one of them.

» I have this dread of being asked to take on yet another project.

» My manager seems to be insensitive to the fact that I am overworked, yet he seems underworked.

» There seem to be a handful of people in my organization who always win awards – and some are undeserving.

» No matter what I do, I am always made to feel like someone in my company is outperforming me.

» Every time I reach the goal, it seems that the goalposts have been moved farther away.

» I am always made to feel as if I am not working hard enough, no matter how hard I work.

» Lester is often giving tasks that are far above his job authorization by his boss when his boss can’t do them.

» Despite the fact that he is the busiest guy in the department, Lester always seems to get the toughest and most important jobs

» Lester sometimes gets frustrated that he doesn’t have to authority to do all things he would like to do.

» If I didn’t know any better, I would say that Lester was actually at a higher staff level than he really is.

» My organization does not have any stated goals.

» My organization does not have a published plan to meet its goals.

» My organization does not engage in any planning activities.

» I never have a sense of how my work is contributing to the overall achievement of our goals.

» My manager changes direction inexplicably.

» I tend to not bring problems to my manager’s attention because I know he won’t do anything about them.

» I never learn about anything important from my manager – I always hear it from someone else.

» My manager spends too much time trying to make people like him. 

» My manager is virtually incapable of making a decision when it really counts.

» I know that whenever my manager renders a “final” decision, it may not be final.

» My manager’s decisions always seem irrational.

» Everyone knows that when my manager makes a decision, there is always a way to change that decision through subterfuge, complaining, or nagging.

» Other managers don’t respect my manager because of his perceived inability to make a decision.

» All project assignments start off with Jeff’s duties.

» No project excludes Jeff.

» You have to remind the group leader that others on the team need assignments too.

» You and your friend ask yourselves “what am I, chopped liver?”

» John is inexplicably assigned to a new role in the organization every few months.

» John is never quite happy in any of the many assignments that he has had.

» John is always the last person to be assigned when work assignments are made.

» John’s skill set doesn’t seem to be well matched with any role in the organization.

» Everybody likes John – but no one can figure out what he actually does