Mark Landin writes and Terry Simpkins agrees:
> ".......a good first topic for the MR would be to give them a
> quick list of all the things from last year that we as a group are
> still waiting to hear about ...."

In the world of corporate business, everyone works for someone else.
Even if you are the CEO of the corporation, you're still responsible
to the shareholders.

A common thread in the corporate structure is the concept of an "annual
review" or some other periodic time when the manager and the employee
get together to discuss the employee's accomplishments, set goals for
the coming year, and review whether the goals from the last meeting have
been met or not.

I propose that the name of the "Management Roundtable" be changed to
"The HP Management Annual Review".

In some very real ways, the people who come to the Management Roundtable
work for their customers.  It is ultimately those customers who determine
whether they will succeed or fail.

Recent years have seen amazing changes in the openness and "customer
focus" of CSY.  These days HP makes few decisions without consulting
with at least specific customers and in many cases with the HP3000
community as a whole.  The Management Roundtable however has remained,
I believe, a fairly painful and unsatisfying event from the points
of view of both the customers and the managers from HP.

A suggestion is that the HP managers consider approaching the meeting
the same way that they approach their own annual performance review with
their own manager.

If I were to go into my own annual review having failed to follow through
on many of the promises and action items that were developed during the
previous review, I would expect the review to be an unpleasant experience,
and I think that's kind of what has been happening at some of the
Management Roundtables.

G.