Your experience sounds like from some sci-fi book written by Isaac Asimov. My reality looks way different: there was Vice President from USA checking the German branch couple weeks ago. 3 days of management presentations full of inaccurate information to show how excellent are we managing our projects. The Vice President had absolutely no interest in the real projects in the labs. Nobody does, project checklist and weekly hours reporting are only 2 interesting things. I am still dreaming experiencing management HP Way, but it’s not happening. Current leaders are accountants and not technical leaders anymore.
HP now is incredibly different from HP then. My dad was there for 38 years before retiring, my mom as well before choosing to stay at home and support the family once I hit 1st grade. Growing up most of our family friends were HP employees and engineers (they were the 2nd largest employer in town). I remember summer picnics meeting high up managers from all over the country. From maybe 2004 to 2010 the culture and management style changed a lot especially under Fiorina. Honestly, from everything I've seen and heard she was the death knell of OG HP simply by crushing the free form engineering spirit of R&D by streamlining and significantly cutting back research. She made HP a lean machine that couldn't innovate and so the dream died.
