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A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

economist.com

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Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#31

Post by celticmusic »

k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

Having recently experienced "agile", one of the things I've concluded is that the PM needs to be fireable by the team. I don't mean unemployed, I simply mean the team needs to be able to tell the PM they will no longer be working with them.

I just put in my 2 week notice at a shop that I've been working at for 6 months, and what I've found is that effectiveness isn't the goal. Having done freelance for the past 8 years, I was actively shocked by how ineffective and wasteful the processes were here. I once witnessed a discussion about whether to CC multiple people or send each person their own copy that took over a week and eventually involved a VP.

I put in my 2 week notice this Monday. It took me all of 2 days to start filling my time again once I made the decision, and I can't even tell you how much I'm looking forward to going back to working for myself. It feels like having a straight jacket removed.

I'm sure there are shops out there that end up using agile and don't become these ridiculous monstrosities, but I feel like those shops would be successful with or without agile.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#32

Post by cgarvis »

k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

At Slalom _build[1], we have People Managers and Team Leads.

Your people manager stays with you as you transition from project to project. They never have more than six direct reports. They are the person that handles all the bureaucracy for you and helping you through the org.

Your team lead is sometimes a people manager but probably not yours. They change based on the project you are on and are responsible for it's success. Their focus is on delivery not your career.

I'm interested in seeing where this goes as it breaks the responsibility up without breaking the career progression. There isn't a "technical path" ... yet.

[1] https://www.slalombuild.com/

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#33

Post by goatinaboat »

romanovcode wrote: post #16
goatinaboat wrote: post #5

Most companies could chop an entire layer of middle management, perhaps many layers, and get an instant boost in productivity and happiness. I wonder if there’s any mechanism for workers and senior management to make this happen and share the rewards.

I think you don't understand the reason for middle-management. Let me paint you a picture where if you'd be CTO (or any other top-management) you'd be greatful for middle-management. Imagine you are CTO of a pretty successful eCommerce company. What you need to oversee as a CTO: - iPhone and Android application - Front-End Website application - Back-End Website application - SAP (Or something similar) integrations fo…

I think you don't understand the reason for middle-management.

I think I do, I’ve worked at places with more middle-managers than engineers! They mainly held meetings with each other all day as us engineers got on with the real work, self-organised when necessary.

It wasn’t too bad since we were mostly left alone but we still resented their generous salaries being paid off our labour.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#34

Post by Benjammer »

cgarvis wrote: post #32
k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

At Slalom _build[1], we have People Managers and Team Leads. Your people manager stays with you as you transition from project to project. They never have more than six direct reports. They are the person that handles all the bureaucracy for you and helping you through the org. Your team lead is sometimes a people manager but probably not yours. They change based on the project you are on and are responsible for it's…

>breaks the responsibility up without breaking the career progression

How do you figure it does this? What you describe just seems like a basic, run-of-the-mill, cross-reporting model to me.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#35

Post by celticmusic »

juliansimioni wrote: post #14
segmondy wrote: post #8

"... when it is difficult to measure what managers do, it can be tricky to design incentives to reward them." Why would it be difficult to measure what managers do? Measure the total output of their team. That's it.

It's difficult because almost every word in your answer is a minefield that cannot be handled simply: measure: how does one truly measure anything related to a team or individual? Just as lines of code is a bad measure of a developer, even very quantifiable things like sales numbers don't tell the whole story. A salesperson who hooks clients on promises that can't be kept is not doing a good job, no matter how it mig…

the output of a team is knowable. It doesn't matter if that output is the result of only a portion of the team, if the manager is enabling that small portion then that's what success looks like.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#36

Post by remotedeveloper »

ebiester wrote: post #11
goatinaboat wrote: post #5

Most companies could chop an entire layer of middle management, perhaps many layers, and get an instant boost in productivity and happiness. I wonder if there’s any mechanism for workers and senior management to make this happen and share the rewards.

I've said this before, but a manager's work is split into thirds: 1/3 is in service of the team. Some of this is bureaucratic (approving expense reports, hiring/firing/promoting), and some of this is being a team facilitator. In meetings, watching that everyone is talking and that one person isn't dominating. Helping with conflict management. Pulling together people from three teams for a meeting and leading it. Agai…

> I worked at a place that had a very lean management:worker ratio, and instead developers ended up doing a lot of the management work, effectively becoming managers without the pay bump or recognition.

Also branded as "Flat Structure"

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#37

Post by Nowyouknow »

k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

That sounds exactly like a project manager, at least for cross-functional teams.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#38

Post by PopeDotNinja »

magashna wrote: post #12

Sure, but a good manager is the one who's sneaky on your behalf. Telling stakeholders a longer timeline than necessary, boosting your accomplishments so you get a raise, taking the bullet from execs, those are all kinda sneaky but I sure as hell respected the managers who did that for stuff for me. The manager you don't want throws you under the bus, over promises and demands crunch, takes the credit for your work. E…

If you ever have a manager who jokes about being a horrible manner with some weird sense of pride during an interview, don't take the job. I learned the hard way.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#39

Post by mzanchi »

k__ wrote: post #2

People often talk about the extemes. Managers or no managers. Why can't we have something in-between? Like, instead of a manager, we have a team assistant. Someone who does burocracy and orga, but hasn't any power and the power is exercied in some way by all of the team members. This would remove the "if all do it no one does it" problem and still prevent single people decisions.

This has been in my mind recently. I am head of development at a startup and have something like 30 direct reports. I don't want to be doing this job for a long time, and am maneuvering the team structure to make myself redundant with the following actions: - I am trying to convince the execs and HR to increase pay transparency and to reward people who want to progress in their careers as engineers more than those who want to become managers. - I have promoted one person with more leadership skills (and less technical ability) to be a dev lead; essentially a mentor, gathering feedback from the team and helping them solve process and communication issues, and keeping track of OKR metrics. - I hired a department assistant, to do resource allocation, manage Jira permissions, tidy up boards, etc. - We have 1 project manager who is responsible for our three internal development projects, controls our budget and fights with other PMs for resources. - All others are Developers and QA. Some are more senior, so they have architecture roles. Everyone gets to give their voice, but one of them has an official role of architecture lead, who has the final say, but that's mostly cerimonial.

My role is to help them focus when they start to drift, shield them from politics, and most importantly give a cerimonial ratification on their ideas, if they match the values of the company.

So all 4 non developers are essentially assistants. I hope to soon be able to step out and leave the team working happily with a 10 to 1 ratio of dev to non-dev.

Re: A study finds that bosses can be useful but also sneaky

#40

Post by Ancalagon »

magashna wrote: post #12

Sure, but a good manager is the one who's sneaky on your behalf. Telling stakeholders a longer timeline than necessary, boosting your accomplishments so you get a raise, taking the bullet from execs, those are all kinda sneaky but I sure as hell respected the managers who did that for stuff for me. The manager you don't want throws you under the bus, over promises and demands crunch, takes the credit for your work. E…

Honest question, which of the two kinds of managers are the ones that get promoted more often?
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