Operation Hero

I never really got into telling the story of what happened after the rejection from that meeting that changed my life. I experienced not just rejection, but also mockery by a manager, after putting so much effort into a plan that makes sense.

I reacted by reading Linchpin, and decided to be one. I devised another plan called Operation Hero. This would differ from the original plan, Operation Siphon (where other teams would gradually take some of our tasks weekly). Here's a brief summary of that plan:

• One team member would be dedicated in doing 50 solutions per week (or 10 a day), while the rest did 10 per week (or 2 per day). The number was calculated to finish everything by the end of the quarter.
• The assigned 'hero' is given some daily offline time, so they don't get distracted with cases and calls.
• The assigned 'hero' can change per week as an option.

The plan was inspired from what another team did, as reported by the Knowledge Management (KM) team, and I tweaked it to better fit our situation. Meanwhile, I sent an email to the KM team, saying that management did not agree to distribute the tasks evenly across the teams, which was against what the KM team had been advising all along. The response was slow, and all they said was that they'd be looking into it.

A few weeks into Operation Hero, in our team meeting my manager announced that the senior manager saw the uneven distribution and so he devised a redistribution plan of his own. Then there were mixed feelings. The announcement was relieving at first. It then annoyed me that I had to come up with a back up plan and do a great portion of the work, while it could have been distributed. It also gave me "I told "you so" and "In your face" vibes. But overall, it was a relief.

My manager vouched for me, and said during their meeting with the senior manager, that his plan was just like mine. The senior manager contacted me and we sort of merged our plans together. The plan was implemented and tasks were distributed. Other managers of the same teams I mentioned previously obliged.

The plan is still in effect today, and has been simplified with the new Authoring Tool that the KM team provided. Redistribution is now done monthly and is very easy to do. Pulling reports and manipulating data is easier now as well.

I'm really grateful to everyone that believed in me and supported me during this time, especially my colleague Mimi, and especially my manager <name withheld>.