Management, like most people, is bad at saying no. It takes practice to do it well.
Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
301–310 of 396 posts
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#302Lack of listening (I am not talking about "hearing" here!). Like most of the problems in this world.
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#303I've never met a manager that wouldn't rather pay four average people $100/hr to solve a problem that one smart person could solve in half the time for $400/hr. There seems to be some sort of quasi-religious belief in the fundamental averageness of humans; consequently the difference between developer salaries at any company varies by maybe 50%, whereas the productivity varies by at least a full order of magnitude. U…
> I sometimes wonder what would happen if some company simply offered to pay 3X the market rate and mercilessly filter the results.
As a developer, what I want is kind of the opposite. I don't want to be paid more than others if I'm more productive, I want to work fewer hours. Pay me for the value of my work, not how long it took to do it.
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#304* Zero career direction and zero technical speciality for devs * Underestimation of difficulty whether through cynicism (burn the devs) or cluelessness * Inadequate training and expectation devs can just piggy back learning technology x from scratch whilst writing production software using it * Trying to use one off contracts as a way of building resellable products * Insistence that all devs time must be billable an…
> All of this inevitably leads to a bunch of pissed off devs. The ones that are happy to eat it become the golden boys and get promotions.
The question asks about behavior that management repeatedly makes. If management repeatedly makes these mistakes, then the mistakes should become expectations, so one should simply accept them and understand that they are part of the game being played. If they are expected behaviors, being "pissed" about them simply is foolish.
Of course, by "accept them" I don't mean one should never try to influence or change the situation, but reacting emotionally rather than rationally is silly. Even if there are no upward-feedback or 360 review procedures in place at the workplace, one can articulate these concerns more diplomatically (less offensively) and send out an email requesting that they be considered. One can even illustrate and trace through how such mistakes have impacted recent projects.
It seems to me that the ones "happy to eat it" simply understand that others have limitations and make mistakes and will try to make the best of the situation. It sounds to me like such people indeed deserve the promotions more than people who bring anger to bear on their work.
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#305Assuming that because someone shipped software that looks good , that they're good.
Everywhere I worked, there's always one "super star" who keeps getting promoted for shipping something quick that looks good on the surface, but did so either by introducing massive amounts of tech debt (beyond what would be acceptable for an MVP), or by shitting on everyone else (working in a corner, ignoring any request for help, ignoring their direct reports, or generally at the cost of all of their other duties).
Makes everyone else look bad and them look good, and generally creates a pretty toxic atmosphere until management gets it (at which point its usually too late).
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
That looks on the face of it nice and worthy but it's rather be meaningless because those are not actual goals. Those words are way too loose for that. The other thing about it is it smells like a marketing phrase rather than anything truthful
Why would they be meaningless? You can use this list in any way. For example when you want to increase your product price. This is fine when it is good for the customer (because they will get a better product). But it is not fine when you do it for the shareholders alone. They are also goals because the ultimate goal is to please the customer, then the employee and than the shareholder. I think they are great guideli…
Why not make everything free? That would benefit the customer dramatically. The reality is that 'customer first' is a good idea, but not actionable.
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google uses a hierarchical system for quarterly and annual goals called OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) that tries to align goals for the company, orgs, teams, and individuals. http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-ranking-system-okr-20...
Anyone else using that? We use it at my company with very varying levels of success.
Almost all big companies. It was done when I worked at Intel 2010sh
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google uses a hierarchical system for quarterly and annual goals called OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) that tries to align goals for the company, orgs, teams, and individuals. http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-ranking-system-okr-20...
Anyone else using that? We use it at my company with very varying levels of success.
Almost all big companies. It was done when I worked at Intel 2010sh
Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#309* Zero career direction and zero technical speciality for devs * Underestimation of difficulty whether through cynicism (burn the devs) or cluelessness * Inadequate training and expectation devs can just piggy back learning technology x from scratch whilst writing production software using it * Trying to use one off contracts as a way of building resellable products * Insistence that all devs time must be billable an…
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Re: Ask HN: What mistakes in your experience does management keep making?
#310The biggest recurring issue I have with my managers over the last twenty years is their need to add unnecessary complexity to projects. I think a good manager stays out of the way and just monitors employees for any obstructions that are preventing them from meeting their goals. Yet, my experience is that when a manager sits in on a project meeting, they can't help but start giving input on the project itself, adding…
Yes, this. Convincing managers to focus on the minimal viable implementation that users can start productively using sooner rather than later and building from there is a real art of senior developers in my experience.
A variation on this theme: years ago I had a manager who was a pretty solid developer who had written a lot of the mission critical code we were supporting. He moved up a couple rungs, got an MBA, brought in scrum (to replace a sclerotic waterfall process), and served as product owner on a lot of our products.
So he was involved in planning meetings and did a pretty good job of steering things there in his product owner role. But once planning was complete and development started, he couldn't resist getting in the ear of individual devs and project managers on the team to alter specs or dictate how he thought things should be implemented. This was after we had met, agreed on a design or strategy (with him present), and started (or even sometimes completed) implementation. It got to the point that we would joke about the stated requirements of a project and the on-the-way-to-the-bathroom requirements.
It really gnawed at both developers and the project managers who worked under him and were responsible for the day-to-day management of the projects. He developed a reputation among the team for being arrogant, aloof, and disrespectful even though that wasn't really his character at all and he was actually a pretty friendly easy-going guy who tried to do things right.