Cognos Reviews in Ottawa, ON Area

Pros

Great place to contirbute ides and push concepts through to prototype. Good mobility options within the organization that include out of country postings.

Cons

Top-heavy, inward facing management. Spurts of brilliance followed by imaginable incompetence should be cause for concern to anyone looking to work there or... acquire them.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember that meetings in board rooms don't reflect the reality of the market place. Often, your customers (even the unhappy ones) are a good source of inspiration.

Pros

- 'the matrix' - allegedly you are able to leverage 300k+ employees within the greater organization
 - free gym!
 - consistent messaging

Cons

Integration pains - talk to someone from greater IBM (who is not a talking head) and see if they consider you to be part of the greater team, or if they consider you to be a pawn to do their bidding. No cohesion whatsoever.

Spending has been frozen for a long time. No extras, no training, no opportunities for personal growth...and no free coffee.

Advice to Senior Management

Open the purse strings and address the percieved inequialities

Pros

The pay is more than decent.

Cons

Middle and lower management are petty, sexist and only ever interested in protecting their arses. Nepotism is rampant and the people managers are not skilled at listening to the people the manage.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a serious look at who you have directly underneath you. Lower-end manangement is all bases on some type of collective arse-protecting buddy system.

Pros

The camaraderie was great. People seemed truly excited and proud to work for the largest software company in Canada. The environment was progressive and it was a great place to go to work. Many of the "Cognoids" were very competent and knowledge sharing was a great way to gain professional knowledge in the field. Morale was generally good.

Cons

The selling of the company to IBM. As stated before, morale was generally good until the announcement of the IBM purchase. Many competent staff exited in the following months, including my myself. From my understanding this continues, with many feeling "trapped" due to the current economy.

Advice to Senior Management

None.

Pros

Great pay. Many good people. Find a manager you can trust to watch your back.

Cons

Politics far greater than one would expect for a company its size. Sr management spends way to much time managing each other and not enough time on the needs of the teams that deliver to customers.

Lotus Notes. Needing 50+ passwords at least one of which you change everyday. Infrastructure is a pain. You spend 1-2 hrs daily fighting the infrastructure vs. doing valuable work.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your teams. Management isn't delivering product to customers.