Without someone to have all the ideas, how could I build anything? It's a question for the ages Answer: the boss isn't for the employee, the boss is for the people who are spending the money on employees they don't trust. Putting in a boss is the first of many measures to protect capital. Most of these measures are very flawed. But even in a cooperative scenario, protecting capital is still a concern because an emplo…
My "boss" (Tech Manager, really) is there to take care of the things that would be a waste of my time... * Sitting in on meetings of things that might be, and calling me in when he feels my input would be useful * Being a first point of contact for the "customer" when they want to find something out but don't want to poke dev directly (they do poke me directly on occasion when they know it's appropriate) * Being a fi…
I'm all for AA's, and I see the value of managers, but is it not possible to have a structure where they have some power where required, but not so much that they basically 'own' you (as is usually the case)?
I'd love to work in a place where managers are not formally 'in charge', but mostly serve the purposes you describe. I might be missing something though, so I'd love to hear arguments why this is not done or not possible.