> My current organization has 8000 staff members, and I used to glance over the usage metrics of the dashboards my old team produced. I believe three dashboards were used, out of somewhere around 50 - 100. Of those being visited, it usually turned out they were being visited by members of our team checking to see if the data had refreshed for the day. I'd estimate the cost of maintaining our team was approximately $1,000,000, for an organization that supposedly can't afford to waste that money.
I’m not sure how to explain this, but often when I find posts on HN linking to an engineer discussing how management is doing it wrong (especially if it’s someone who’s not running a successful company themselves), there’s usually a hyperfocus on really insignificant numbers as evidence of their point.
This company has 8000 employees. And the cost of maintaining those dashboards is about $1mm according to the post.
It only takes someone in management to identify a change which improved employee efficiency by $125 annually to completely pay for the $1mm spent to maintain the dashboard.
Identify a new $125 efficiency improvement every year, and by year 5 your $1mm annual expense is saving you $5mm every year.
I’m not sure how to explain this, but often when I find posts on HN linking to an engineer discussing how management is doing it wrong (especially if it’s someone who’s not running a successful company themselves), there’s usually a hyperfocus on really insignificant numbers as evidence of their point.
This company has 8000 employees. And the cost of maintaining those dashboards is about $1mm according to the post.
It only takes someone in management to identify a change which improved employee efficiency by $125 annually to completely pay for the $1mm spent to maintain the dashboard.
Identify a new $125 efficiency improvement every year, and by year 5 your $1mm annual expense is saving you $5mm every year.