yvp

>So the need is not so much to know what the employees are working on but rather how the projects are going. This is usually handled by steering committees or similar governance bodies, where each successive hierarchical level gets a broader (but necessarily more concise) overview of all the projects they are involved in.

I agree this seems to be a common pattern. You do run into multiple issues with it (though there is no perfect solution) - some of which already described by pg in one of his essays (http://paulgraham.com/boss.html).

I tend to think the quality of information is maybe inversely proportional to the levels it has to go through to reach the intended recipient as each layer will inevitably add noise/distortion.

I think what you say makes sense.

I do think good lower management helps, though I do wonder if there are certain processes or practices that a company can adopt to maximize the chances of 'right' information making its way to the relevant parties.

These days, it seems that people's terms of choice are OKRs, though I think these are useful if clearly defined and updated regularly. However, if they aren't defined well, they have the potential of getting people to focus on the wrong thing.

Curious if people have company-wide productivity tools which simplify repetitive daily tasks - regardless of whether it's a vendor product or built in-house.

New account, yes. Thanks