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On Tue, 29 May 2012 01:34:52 -0700 |
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Grant <emailgrant@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> > All these things class as interference. Managers and owners who do |
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> > this have miles of justifiable reasons for doing so, but it's |
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> > always hogwash |
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> > - they interfere, plain and simple. |
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> |
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> This is really interesting to me. Is there a forum/website/book with |
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> more gritty, practical advice like this on managing programmers? |
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> These are the kinds of mistakes I will definitely make if someone |
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> doesn't tell me not to. |
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Everything I know about dealing with technical people is from the |
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school of hard knocks :-) |
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I don't think it's something that can be taught or |
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properly described adequately. But there are some obvious concepts: |
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Programmers are essentially not too different from any other type of |
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technical people, and you are already very familiar with those just by |
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reading gentoo-user. All that stuff we do here wrt top-posting, html |
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mail, udev and pulseaudio developers having strange ideas and |
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(being perceived to be) ramming it down people's throats - all that |
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stuff applies. |
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I don't know how you personally deal with such things but whatever you |
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find works is probably good enough. |
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Techies don't like being second-guessed and told what to do when they |
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are perfectly capable of doing the job properly. This is just a normal |
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human reaction really and is always solved by simple communication. You |
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always have to get to know people first, to get a grip on their |
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personality, and then find out how to successfully interact with them. |
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If you are married, consider what it took to learn how to interact with |
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your wife smoothly :-) |
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> Could you tell me really briefly what a manager *should* do? |
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Ouch. That's another encyclopedia-length answer :-) |
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I'll give you a short oblique answer that seems to work for me: |
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Managers do not lead, they serve. They are not there to call the shots, get covered in glory, |
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be seen as the best of the best or issue decrees. I've been fortunate to |
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have had a few good managers in my working life and they all seemed to |
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instinctively do the same very important thing: make it possible for me |
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to do my job. |
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They would deal with finance issues, they would help find out where new |
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hardware was in the shipping process, they would be a buffer between me |
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and the customer (or between me and the annoying executive). They would |
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publicly cover me in glory when things worked out well and cover my ass |
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when they didn't. And all too often they would clam me down when I went |
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off on one of my rants. The point is, the manager took care of |
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everything on the project except the part about being a programmer :-) |
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Good managers are very good at observing. They don't impose themselves |
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on the job at hand, they watch it and see where things are going great |
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and where things can be improved. They are also patient and only |
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try to improve one thing at a time, getting that thing right then move |
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onto the next thing. |
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My current manager is great, we're both a similar |
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age (mid 40s), and we have an understanding - I'm good at my job and |
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he's good at his. It took a while for both of us to recognize this and |
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build that trust but I think we got it right eventually. The key thing |
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was to communicate to the other guy and be honest and listen. In the |
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beginning there was some "alpha-male" posturing going on and we had to |
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drop that somewhat quickly :-) |
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He's also particular in finding out what the whole team thinks about |
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things, so really listens to our input. |
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That's what I find works for me, but unlike computers I can't put it |
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down in step-by-step fashion that will give a certain result. |
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> |
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> I think I'll try to manage a single programmer working few hours and |
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> see how it goes. My asking stupid questions is due to my lack of |
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> experience and there's only one way to fix that. |
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Sounds to me like you already grasp the essentials :-) |
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Good luck with the project. |
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Oh , one last thing: despite all appearances to the contrary, most |
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people out there can be trusted to do the right thing as far as they |
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are able, and do want to do a good job. Don't let occasional lapses |
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cloud your view of this. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, we all must |
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learn to be tolerant when it happens. |
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|
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-- |
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Alan McKinnnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |