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Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

jeffammons.com

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Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#31

Post by gerdesj »

I'm not sure what sort of engineer jeffammons2 is but this article has no examples in it, just a load of assertions.

However, the bonsai in the picture are the real deal. Those are absolutely priceless. That fir tree wants to create needles that are about three to six inches long. It has been pinched religiously for decades. The moss and lichens on the stone are phenomenal and the stone itself was probably licked for years (I am only partially joking). It looks sea worn and looks like it has some wormholes. The sand has been manipulated with tweezers and probably with a microscope involved. The creator of that thing is getting on a bit now and their eyesight is probably like mine.

Note the "weighting" of the main elements - the way the tree and main rock leans very carefully to the right and the weight of the left and right main portions of both.

That tree and setting is worth studying and striving towards.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#33

Post by granshaw »

bb88 wrote: post #26

Your engineering manager may not know: * How to manage people. I realize this is snarky in tone but in 2023 this still rings true for many people. Much of management doesn't know anything about engineering. Many engineers don't know anything about managing people. The worse the management the worse the politics.

Its ironic that many companies with interesting work (startups mostly) will have inexperienced managers, mostly of the engineer-turned-manager kind

It's at the bigger or more dinosaur companies that you'll have a better chance of reporting to someone with some actual managerial experience

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#34

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Any business is an interconnected system of systems - and Roughly speaking 50 years ago, a "manager" would design / improve those systems, optimise them and get the workers to operate inside the system - via design, training, incentives or shouting.

The (capable) managers were rewarded

As Software eats the world, more and more workers in the systems are CPUs and GPUs. And the coders are the new managers.

More and more of what a business is and does, especially day to day BAU, is done in software - for some industries like finance and comms (FNG) almost exclusively in software.

And that means that if you have an organisation "above" the coders, you are asking how do we organise the managers of the managers?

At some point you have to ask, why do we have them there? History has shown time and again some central bureaucracy trying to co-orindate and control ends up inefficient and detrimental - and I think traditional management structures have simply been rendered unnecessary

Maybe the answer to engineering the organisation is ... dont

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#35

Post by Buttons840 »

gerdesj wrote: post #31

I'm not sure what sort of engineer jeffammons2 is but this article has no examples in it, just a load of assertions. However, the bonsai in the picture are the real deal. Those are absolutely priceless. That fir tree wants to create needles that are about three to six inches long. It has been pinched religiously for decades. The moss and lichens on the stone are phenomenal and the stone itself was probably licked for…

I only recently learned that bonsai trees are just regular trees. That tree pictured could be transplanted and would grow to be a normal full sized tree, amazing.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#36

Post by meindnoch »

Buttons840 wrote: post #35
gerdesj wrote: post #31

I'm not sure what sort of engineer jeffammons2 is but this article has no examples in it, just a load of assertions. However, the bonsai in the picture are the real deal. Those are absolutely priceless. That fir tree wants to create needles that are about three to six inches long. It has been pinched religiously for decades. The moss and lichens on the stone are phenomenal and the stone itself was probably licked for…

I only recently learned that bonsai trees are just regular trees. That tree pictured could be transplanted and would grow to be a normal full sized tree, amazing.

They are just regular trees, meticulously crippled over years and years.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#37

Post by subharmonicon »

jammons wrote: post #24
hgsgm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to apologize for removing clickbait.

Thanks, yeah, I was trying to make it clear what the post was about for anyone clicking.

Yeah no worries. It’s never clear to me what edits are “in bounds” and I’ve seen a lot of other people call out things that hadn’t been posted as written.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#38

Post by H8crilA »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #34

Any business is an interconnected system of systems - and Roughly speaking 50 years ago, a "manager" would design / improve those systems, optimise them and get the workers to operate inside the system - via design, training, incentives or shouting. The (capable) managers were rewarded As Software eats the world, more and more workers in the systems are CPUs and GPUs. And the coders are the new managers. More and mor…

History shows the exact opposite. What higher level managers, directors and executives do is politics (the practice of allocation of resources).

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#39

Post by gerdesj »

Buttons840 wrote: post #35
gerdesj wrote: post #31

I'm not sure what sort of engineer jeffammons2 is but this article has no examples in it, just a load of assertions. However, the bonsai in the picture are the real deal. Those are absolutely priceless. That fir tree wants to create needles that are about three to six inches long. It has been pinched religiously for decades. The moss and lichens on the stone are phenomenal and the stone itself was probably licked for…

I only recently learned that bonsai trees are just regular trees. That tree pictured could be transplanted and would grow to be a normal full sized tree, amazing.

Yes they are regular trees. I have an uncle who used to own a nursery (selling plants and trees) that decreed bonsai to be "cruel". I love him and my aunt in equal measure but should point out that they deployed rootstock for their trees (just saying!)

I am toying with getting back into bonsai. I'm now 53 and might have enough patience to do quite well. I planted a few trees a few decades ago that I might find useful as some raw material. Who knows?

If you fancy a dabble you can get a very easy good first result. Don't buy a "bonsai" from a garden centre - please don't. The materials are very cheap but you do have to invest with time.

Re: Coaching engineering managers to take on organizational problems

#40

Post by H8crilA »

shawnz wrote: post #5
mansoon wrote: post #3

Don’t ever take on organizational problems. You are working at a company. The company is a sociopath. You have to act accordingly.

And if that sociopath is offering you money to take on those organizational problems, what's the according act in that case?

Put the money in a nice pile and see if it stacks higher than the organizational shit you'll be dealing with. It's a maths problem.
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