One Microsoft - Re-org & new Executive VP of Devices and Studios

[Silent_Buddha]

I've done it all as well. And I've had good middle managers and bad ones. And situations where I've had a good one that got promoted and then had a bad one replace him. Ugh, that was horrible. The worst is when you have a bad middle manager that is almost impossible to replace because they are buddies with upper management. At that point it's a sign that the company probably isn't going to survive long term.

Regards,
SB

 

[ERP]

I've worked under many management structures and never once have I worked in one that benefited from middle managers. Where I work now we have a completely flat organization, where there is one manager per site. Essentially we all report directly to the VP, but we do have our own manager for our site, because the VP is in a timezone 3 hours away. Best group I've ever worked in. I'll be happy if I never have to deal with a low-level manager ever again. They're all shit.

Microsoft has ~60000 employees in Redmond alone, there is no way they could function with a flat structure.
Even individual orgs are enormous, Bing for example has ~5000 employees.
Now MS has issues in some areas getting group objectives aligned, and it. And it can be for a lot of reasons.
Much of the reason they were paralyzed on fronts outside their core operations though was related to a small number of people at or near the top with disproportionate power, trying to protect their positions. Synofsky being the poster child.

I think the reorg is fine for XBox, the danger would have been if they'd been rolled under operating systems. The fact the new exec is from Windows is neither here nor there.

 

[tuna]

I've worked under many management structures and never once have I worked in one that benefited from middle managers. Where I work now we have a completely flat organization, where there is one manager per site. Essentially we all report directly to the VP, but we do have our own manager for our site, because the VP is in a timezone 3 hours away. Best group I've ever worked in. I'll be happy if I never have to deal with a low-level manager ever again. They're all shit.

How many report to your manager? And does the manager set your wages?

 

[Scott_Arm]

How many report to your manager? And does the manager set your wages?

My particular manager has about 60 people and he sets my wages.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Microsoft has ~60000 employees in Redmond alone, there is no way they could function with a flat structure.
Even individual orgs are enormous, Bing for example has ~5000 employees.
Now MS has issues in some areas getting group objectives aligned, and it. And it can be for a lot of reasons.
Much of the reason they were paralyzed on fronts outside their core operations though was related to a small number of people at or near the top with disproportionate power, trying to protect their positions. Synofsky being the poster child.

I think the reorg is fine for XBox, the danger would have been if they'd been rolled under operating systems. The fact the new exec is from Windows is neither here nor there.

5000 for one particular product is quite a lot. We're not that big, so I can see how you need more management to handle that kind of workforce. Still, the 10 people for a manager, with 10 managers per director etc etc does not work well from my experience, but I'm just dragging this off topic.

 

[Davros]

and our EA offer,

What E.A offer ?

 

[Zaphod]

I think that refers to "Enterprise Agreement", i.e. their volume licencing; not E.A. as in Electronic Arts.