So, the thing to do about it is to help expose it by determining and implementing accurate methods of work quantification as it relates to productivity and exposing the results to the administration.
The other way is to remove the overhead and determine at a basic level what the company's goals are and how you are going to gather and use metrics simply to determine how well those goals are being met. Outsource it or use existing resources, but get it done. The problem is how to determine metrics for things not easily quantified, but usually "software development" is not the company goal- rather it is "making the customer happy" and "making money". But, the goals can't be that generic. And, it has to be a low-overhead feedback loop, where progress must be seen quickly, otherwise it is not practical. The KISS principle also applies. Too much process is bad. But this is just a lot of talk. You should just do something simple to measure productivity and then keep iterating until you have something great. That is how great companies are born, whether they know it or not.
(sili889q user created one hour ago by notmyname to coincide with his post)
oh, we could be here for hours, like Abbott and Costello
Example: one company I was at, made us send in an Excel spreadsheet of our hours each week so they could track which projects were being worked on.
Everyone just saved a copy of last week's , then changed a few numbers around, double-checking that it added up to at least 40 hours (just select the cells in a row or column and Excel sums them for you); then sent it in after changing the week number at the top.
- do a survey of customer satisfaction on different points (but make it wide-open so they can express other concerns) and see how well ranking increases or decreases
- do an anonymous survey of employee happiness and self-assessments of productivity (but make it wide-open so they can express other concerns) and see how well ranking increases or decreases
- look at number of requests being served and from where, response times, repeat customers, support requests, errors, etc. (things that people won't hopefully make up)
- look at financials for important parts of the company and how they go up and down
- work hard to put money into R&D, tools, training, maintenance, etc. and take away from parts of the company that are draining money
Even if its exposed, the administration is part of the bureaucracy that furthered fake work along in the first place. ie created fake groups and projects and "moats" in order to make it look like management was doing a great job and that a lot of "work" was getting done
What I've learned is that if you think like you do (and I do), you should not work with people that think like this. The best way to avoid this sort of bureaucratic thinking by the administration is to work for a small business. However, the trade-off is much too hard for many of us; if you work with people that value business more than family, you might be working for some real assholes.
So, it requires a careful balance. Enough people in the business so that the companies led by assholes are limited, but small enough so bureaucrats like the ones you mention can't flourish.