Ford

The family company atmosphere seems to make the company more flexible to changes. Products are competitive and often first to market. Many products are leaders, like the trucks.

Pay seems to just keep up with inflation, and in 2021, it did not keep up with inflation by less than half.

Organizational structure frequently changes to the point it can distract from the primary tasks of delivering the product.

Communication, roles, and responsibilities seem to be unclear, leading to misses that cause a lot of revisiting and churn, such as product cost target setting.

A clear vision of what the engineering organization should be or where it is going does not seem to exist.

Computer systems are buggy or hard to use, and workarounds must be used, which takes time and is inefficient.

Overall, a lot of workarounds are needed to get the job done, requiring inordinate focus.

Six weeks of parental leave at Ford, compared to 12-20 weeks of leave at other companies.

The bonus is half of what other auto companies offer.

Pay seems to just keep up with inflation. In 2021, it did not keep up with inflation by less than half.

The organizational structure frequently changes to the point that it can distract from the primary tasks of delivering the product.

Communication, roles, and responsibilities seem unclear, leading to misses that cause a lot of revisiting and churn, such as with product cost target setting.

A clear vision of what the engineering organization should be or where it is going does not seem to exist.

Computer systems are buggy or hard to use, and workarounds must be used, which takes time and is inefficient.

Overall, a lot of workarounds are needed to get the job done, requiring inordinate focus. These are examples of uncompetitive benefits.

IT systems and internal work processes need massive streamlining and are the source of uncompetitive margins and high costs of product development.