Quotes About Management

Effective management of open issues is purely about diligence. Someone has to both investigate potential problems and take the time to write them down.

One side effect of having teams is there will always be things that fall through the cracks. Teams create territories.

the more complex performance reviews become, the less effective they are.

Succession planning must be part of any long-term leader's thinking, and it has to be done now.

A good sign as a leader is when output is high and meetings are short.

Knowing how much friction is needed and when to apply it is the skill that successful leaders, from the coach of a competitive basketball team to the conductor of an orchestra, must master.

much of the boring machinery identified as management has more value for the manager's ego than the quality of work produced.

After years of leading projects, the best thing I've learned is that I have to periodically shift between thinking small (bazaar) and thinking long term (cathedral).

management is seen as a support role. The company stays as flat as possible for this reason. Schneider described his philosophy in this way: 1. Hire great people. 2. Set good priorities. 3. Remove distractions. 4. Stay out of the way.

critical path is the shortest sequence of work that can complete the project.

Product creators are the true talent of any corporation, especially one claiming to bet on innovation. The other roles don't create products and should be there to serve those who do. A classic betrayal of this idea is when the IT department dictates to creatives what equipment they can use. If one group has to be inefficient, it should be the support group, not the creatives. If the supporting roles, including management, dominate, the quality of products can only suffer.

Thirty to 40 years ago, most financial decisions were fairly simple.

Procrastination isn't task management, it's feeling management.

Just because we like to drink doesn't mean we want to run the tavern

So severe is the crisis that in 2011 Governor Rick Snyder persuaded the state legislature to grant him broad and unprecedented powers to take control of fiscally unstable local governments and to abrogate union agreements, a highly controversial maneuver that smacks of malevolent paternalism more than sound public management.

Waiter, waiter! There's a twig in my soup. Hold on, sir, I'll get the branch manager.

The producer's responsibilities include hiring and building teams; writing contracts; contributing to the game's design; managing the team's work schedule; balancing the game's budget; resolving disputes between creative and programming leads; acting as the team representative to upper management and publishers; coordinating the creation of outside resources such as art, music, and cutscenes; and arranging testing and localization.

Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.

Progress needs the brakeman, but the brakeman should not spend all his time putting on the brakes.

Despatch is taking time by the ears; hurry is taking it by the end of the tail.

Government can screw up just about everything. Given enough power and time it will screw up everything.

Every time you change your orders without obvious reason, you weaken your authority.

Nothing adds to a person's leisure time like doing things when they are supposed to be done.

The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. That's 20 percent of my week.