> Nicely worded, Ed. Maybe I'm not imagining things when I believe IBM is more > interested in closing open problem records than in solving the underlying > problems. It didn't used to be this way.
You mean IBM has been lying to me when they tell me I am the only obstinate one? <g,d&r> >There does seem to be much more emphasis on getting PMRs closed than >before. Someone's performance appraisal is probably based on the number >of open (or closed) PMRs. After all, closed means resolved. Right? Right. And I have been told that even sev4 PMRS (that used to be outside any statistics) are now tracked and pressure is put on the support person to 'resolve this', i.e. force the customer to close. The solution in that case is to immediately open another PMR, where statistics count fresh and give support some time to catch up. I am talking about problems where development/whoever needs convincing, and the support person understandably wants a PMR to report time on (did I mention that when I left IBM, we were supposed to account for every minute of every day having spent it on a PMR? There were even accounting codes for setting the accounting right). I just finally closed one of those chains that took 2.5 years to finally get a good requirement for, and I give heartfelt thanks to *that* support lady that she even put up with all that pressure! It appears that *everyone's* "performance appraisal" is based on these numbers, the sooner the code 'gave the customer a ptf that was already built' is put in , the better it is for the person. That's why one gets so many 'you don't have this ptf in, please go to the latest maintenance level (or we will not look at the problem). And why in IBM meetings the discussion in a sev1/critsit always centers around the fact that one ptf (whose description has nothing whatsoever to do with your current problem) is not in and why you won't emergency put it in just to get IBM working. And that discussion is instigated by sales, not technicians, because it apparently is an IBM dircetive. Oh yes, and there is also no such thing as 'negative feedback' anymore. I have an ETR where a ptf was written for my bug. When I finally brought it into production (where the problem only occured), it turned out that the bug was not fixed at all. Instead of really putting in the 'not-fixed' retain code, they closed the PMR and opened another one to 'investigate'. >Just for fun, someone should put together one of those PDF form templates: Very good idea. I'll use that, too, in the future! :-) >At PMR close time there used to be a way to flag a PMR for further use >It was ( and still is AFAIK) is called promoting a PMR That is still around. At one point (when someone from IBM introduced us to Servicelink) the guy wanted a search argument. I told him to use my name - on the assumption that he would get the apars that I had written. Instead what he got was a list of *a lot* of my ETRs opened as a customer. Probably as an example what they will deal with when they deal with me. These days I think most of the PMRs are put into the 'internal' category, so they never make it into the pddb (where at least the European) service link finds those 'sanitized' PMRs. And when I did the same search on my name, those ETRs weren't shown to me, either. >I've also noticed a tendency for PMRs to be put on the customer >queue even when waiting for something from IBM. This seems to >vary from person to person, though. Maybe it's just irritating >behavior on the part of the IBMer working the PMR rather than a >policy to make the statistics look better. Yes, I have an ETR open currently that in about every second of my appends says 'It is NOT my responsibility!' when I notice that someone has again cr ca'd it to the customer, just so 'the customer can see the update'. Support personnel doesn't want to acknowledge that the customer can see the PMR just fine. And it occurs on too many of my/our ETRs in too many components to be 'just irritating behaviour', it *is* an IBM policy because statistics don't count when it is 'user responsibility'. The other 'irritating' thing is the support center's reluctance to change compids, as statistics count against the compid in the ETR. And another 'irritating' thing is (for Europeans) when the PMR goes back to the country with the demand to 'send it to component xyz' instead of doing it themselves immediately and NOT loosing time. And another 'irritating' thing is what we Germans call 'Durchlauferhitzer' (a device that heats water using electricity): The fact that everything is queud to level1 who queue it to level2 who queue it to level3. They never add value in that queueing, it just lengthens the PMR by saying 'please see customers update'. And it adds to the absolutely irritating thing that almost nobody bothers to read an ETR anymore from the top to see what the problem actually is. It leads to requests for the same information (that was already put into the ETR) again and again. Or for some components, the same text is copied in several times, severely lengthening any PMR and defininitely loosing the thread while they're at it. Oh, and I normally do NOT attend IBM meetings anymore because I am sick and tired of the discussion that always is instigated by the pre/sales person on the account team: You have too many sev2 ETRs... When it is IBM responsibility, he always wants the severity set to at least a 3. Last time I told him in no uncertain terms that *I* don't open sev3s anymore, because IBM doesn't work on them, anyway. And for a sev3 I have an easy bypass that saves me a lot of time (collecting documentation and forcing IBM to really take a look at the problem). Easier for my stress level, too! Yes, and now I've told you how I really feel. Barbara ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
