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So you're a manager now

scottkosman.com

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Re: So you're a manager now

#111

Post by jampa »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #65

Bottom tier manager is the worst role in tech. * You are responsible for sticking to commitments that depend almost completely on other people sticking to theirs. * You're still on the hook for delivery, so if someone you assigned a subtask can't get that job done, you either have to pass it on to someone else (which often ends up harming the social dynamic of the team) or just do it yourself. Throwing an employee un…

It depends a lot.

In your first two points, I think that after you know your team well enough, you will understand where your engineers' skills lie and learn how to delegate effectively to either the person most capable or the one who will learn the most.

Your last point is true in larger enterprises. However, it's not so bad if you are a manager in smaller companies or startups, when you are 1-3 steps from the CEO, you get a lot of independence.

In the other points, I must admit I never went through an RIF and never had a situation where the "engineers were too green." However, I worked at an enterprise company where there was a 1:1 ratio of interns to employees, so it might be a large enterprise. Generally, there is always at least one senior in the team to deal with firefighting.

Re: So you're a manager now

#112

Post by tikhonj »

tikhonj wrote: post #110
throwaway91743 wrote: post #57

This was a great read! Saving this to re-read in the future. One question I have though is what are you supposed to do if as a new manager you aren't allowed to... well, do your job? I haven't been able to find a lot of resources on what to do in such a situation. I'm a new engineering manager (~8 months in) and my boss isn't letting me hire full-time devs to replace consultants whenever they leave or their contracts…

> I need to continue delivering at the same capacity with a significantly scaled-down team. I'd start by thinking through how much of that "need" is real . What is driving the things your team "needs" to accomplish? What hard external constraints are you operating under? What are the interaction points between your work and the rest of the organization? How much flexibility do you have? And, holistically, how much fl…

One more thing: when I've been in analogous situations, one of the difficulties I had was managing my own emotions. I'm still not especially good at that. But one thing that helped me was taking some concrete action to change things, even if it's small and symbolic. Just starting something—even if it means writing up some notes and setting up a meeting—immediately helped manage my own anxiety. It sounds obvious in hindsight, but it took me a while to recognize this! Now I have three coping strategies I reach for:

  - write up my thoughts and feelings—sometimes notes to myself, sometimes as docs I can share with others
  - talk to somebody—I got a lot out of having mentors to talk to in and outside my job; occasionally they gave me non-obvious advice I found useful, but mostly just talking through something really helped
  - do just *one* concrete thing about whatever is worrying me
Honestly, writing comments like this is also a coping strategy! I've repeatedly written about topics like this online and it has really helped me deal with things and work through my own ideas and observations.

In your case, the answer could well just be leaving like others are suggesting. But, even if it is, trying to do something about it at your current place might still be worth the effort in the short term. Even if things don't work out and you leave, it can make you feel better in the short term, and it's a great chance to learn how to handle this kind of situation by actually trying something. (And, in hindsight, that whole paragraph is advice I needed to give to myself just now more than advice for you or anyone else :P)

Re: So you're a manager now

#113

Post by scottkosman »

Aurornis wrote: post #3

Some good advice. It’s missing one of the most difficult topics: Performance Management. Most first-time managers have already read a lot of advice about being humble, delegating, celebrating your team’s wins, and the other feel good topics. If you want to write internet advice that gets upvoted and shared you almost have to avoid the difficult conversation topics and assume that the team is full of perfect people th…

[dead]

Re: So you're a manager now

#114

Post by steveBK123 »

joncrane wrote: post #102
steveBK123 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good point but I'll add the problem is also the system/incentives of whatever org you are in. Some shops its easy enough to manage someone out and bring in a new team member who will contribute more. This is a health environment and generally free of the boom-bust hire/fire cycle. Other shops have very top down hire/fire cycles where if you fire someone now you have no ability to replace them, and worse yet..…

> I often find, aside from exceptional cases, most of them actually have some part of the job they prefer & are good at, so modifying the task allocation can go a long way. While this works in the short/naive scenario, I feel like in most cases these low performers prefer the "gravy" work if you will. The type of work that almost everyone prefers and is good at. So you risk setting a bad precedent for perverse incent…

Really depends actually!

In a sufficient sized team you may have boring/rote tasks that your high performers hate & neglect, but sometimes a comparatively lower performer will take on.

In many cases it's the (sometimes perceived but not in practice) higher performers that want the harder exciting high profile tasks, but maybe don't want to do the less fun parts of those tasks. Basic data munging, documentation, testing, monitoring, configuration management, etc... no fun!

A lot of perceived high performing devs I've worked with want to be like surgeons who walk into the OR, put their hands into the gloves, pick up the tools prepared for them on a tray, do the surgery, and leave.

Re: So you're a manager now

#115

Post by clwncr »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #12
b3lvedere wrote: post #5

"Be Clear. Painfully Clear. You think you’re being obvious. You’re not. Spell out expectations. Over-communicate. Set goals in plain language." Lots of managers i had the pleasure of working with, missed this memo entirely...

This is a really tough one isn't it? On the other hand I personally don't like when leaders or managers are over communicating (contrasting to this article). Of course I never say it, so the author can claim that nobody has criticised managers for over communicating, but I do despise too frequent check ins, meetings that are going too long, people who talk for too long when I just want to get started already. Manager…

Overcommunication is a failure to provide appropriate context, with a side of bad delegation and overinvestment in process.

Without context, manager communication is noise. It's a waste of everyone's time and is functionally sabotage because it disempowers people. Worse, the problem can compound itself when a team gets demotivated and the manager tries to solve "lack of ownership" by spending even more time trying to direct behavior.

Good managers give their team appropriate context and tools, and then trust the process. Good organizations train and support managers in doing that.

Re: So you're a manager now

#116

Post by scottLobster »

hobs wrote: post #29
alphazard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's corporate world, it can be difficult or impossible to fire people. It's important to understand that actually removing someone from the organization is a totally separate problem from managing the performance of the team. People who don't contribute or cause problems need to be sequestered as much as possible. Don't let them bring down the rest of the team. I think "managed out" is the term that's being us…

It's just not though. People above you are making decisions to not pay what generally amounts to trivial amounts of money to (in many cases I have seen) completely fuck up their products. I have worked with enough C levels to understand that most of them just want you to manage all the problems while they collect the money and make "strategic decisions" (follow whatever fad is hot right now.) It's why I like working…

As an IC, one reason I left my old (hated) job was precisely that. The product was barely-functional shit. We once spent 8 months implementing a "feature" that had senior engineers walking off the program in protest, only for them to be validated when said feature caused us to miss our contractual requirements just like said senior engineers said it would, and we spent another 8 months ripping it out.

Naturally I went looking for answers, started asking polite questions of my boss at 1-on-1s, started attending program-level meetings that engineers didn't typically show up to but were large/open enough I could blend into the background, and discovered that the root of the problem was roughly 3 levels into management and they weren't going to give a shit about what some engineers thought they should prioritize, even if we could tie it to financials/hours worked/cost savings (we tried and were politely ignored).

Left for a smaller program at a different company, and it's night and day. I remember suggesting that it would be nice if we could have an additional server for a system we were building and got told "yeah good idea, go ask if it's in the budget". It was, and we got it. I was in heaven.

Re: So you're a manager now

#117

Post by MrGilbert »

whstl wrote: post #100
kortilla wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an agile coach isn’t management

Off topic, but: It's interesting how everyone thinks they're "managers" in "agile" teams. Scrum Masters, Product Owners. I've even had Designers and QAs trying to make decisions on behalf of the team.

That sounds like a dysfunctional team to me, to be honest.

Re: So you're a manager now

#119

Post by MrGilbert »

dogleash wrote: post #74
MrGilbert wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to know why my comment received a downvote / downvotes.

I didn't downvote, but you started out sharing credentials that aren't management and then recounted standard platitudes about collaboration and some personal experience with zero transferable utility. And you posted that in response to a comment saying how difficult topics necessary to succeeding as a manager don't happen often on the internet. I understand why people would evaluate your contribution as detracting f…

Understandable. Thanks for pointing it out!

Re: So you're a manager now

#120

Post by general1726 »

Surac wrote: post #18

Now the dark side grows in you. Managers are the anchors in every company. They make sure nothing moves ever again. They are like a parasite sitting on the shoulder of thinking engineers. They get there money for nothing

That's one sided view. As somebody who manages people (I hate it tbh) things which can piss me off the most are engineers who will go out of their way to not do the task or make some stupid excuse why it is not possible to do the task which will fall apart the moment I will start poking into the excuse.
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