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What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

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Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#121

Post by noisy_boy »

mp3jeep01 wrote: post #23

When I first started work out of college I kept a notebook of "things I like/don't like" about my managers, mostly as a training piece for myself. One of the top qualities one of my managers had was his comfort level with admitting to me "I don't know the answer to that, but I think I know where we can find it". Probably summed up as something like "check your ego at the door". This goes for not only managers, but an…

This hit too close to home. As a subordinate and as a manager, I've always felt totally comfortable saying, "I'm not sure but I'll check this".

As a subordinate, it was quite annoying to deal with one of the worst managers in my career - I call him the "pretender". I already have plenty to do, and no I don't want to spend time on "checking if too many ping requests from other machines caused harddisk space on this machine to get full" (not joking, true story). The "pretender" had a title of "senior project manager" and the only thing true about that was the "senior" part (nothing against competent seniors), hemmed and hawed in the meetings pretending he knew what he was talking about and basically dumped it all on me.

Once I moved up and stopped reporting to him, he had nobody to dump work on, got exposed and last I heard, left.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#122

Post by ansimionescu »

kabdib wrote: post #9

Good managers realize they have to be managers and can't do an effective job of engineering (this is certainly true of a first-level manager with more than a few reports). The best managers I've had have sighed wistfully and wished out loud that they could do engineering, but made a conscious decision not to. The really good managers will be very interested in how you are getting along with your career, and it will o…

I just read your bio blurb – wow, that's pretty damn impressive! I'm a CS grad looking for a job, and am very passionate about Valve and what it stands for (while at uni I tried to create a startup based on basically the same principles).

I don't know how to contact you, so if you ping me at [0] or [1] I can send you a link to my resume. Thanks!

edit: I'm a big dum-dum – it was quite easy to find your Fb profile, I sent you my resume there (check 'Other' messages). :)

0: https://plus.google.com/+AndreiSimionescu

1: my username at gmail

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#123

Post by IgorPartola »

mantrax5 wrote: post #84
IgorPartola wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am reading Dune and this is very similar to the advice Leto gave to Paul. Which came first, I wonder?

Can you please quote which part you refer to?

"Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him . . . once . . . long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."

I pulled it from http://www.bestlibraryspot.com/ScienceFiction/Dune/16669.htm....

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#124

Post by IgorPartola »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #106
deathanatos wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having not read Dune myself, I was rather hoping you would quote the relevant passage, so that I and those like myself can compare it to the aforementioned military quote, and perhaps derive some insight from it.

It's worth reading.

I am almost through it and I have to say I am not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I read books like this mostly because of their significance to the SciFi genre and while I think this books has some really great elements, the fact that Paul is basically infallible irks me. Nobody is that perfect in my experience and I wish I wasn't sure that he'd be successful with everything he starts.

I did read a critique of Dune recently that suggested that Herbert initially wanted to show how dangerous superheros are. This explains a bit about why Paul is a superhero: he has to be to make Herbert's thesis. However, then I'd be rooting for him to fail and I don't like the stories where the protagonist is evil in some subtle way and you are supposed to root for them to fail.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#125

Post by IgorPartola »

Amezarak wrote: post #118
IgorPartola wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I realized later that I did wrong was pushing back on the upper management too much. For example I said I did not want my team working weekends on regular basis as had been the practice up to that point. We ended up not having to anyways but it painted the team in a bad light. Really this translated into me taking a long time to understand what the priorities of the business were vs the development prioriti…

If by working the weekends you mean seven-day work weeks on a regular basis, I strongly believe you were doing the right thing. The health of your employees is a much bigger priority than business or development. They're not human resources, they're people with families and loved ones and the need to have a day off. Unless you were on the verge of curing cancer, there is no reason to work people like that. You were i…

More like working Saturdays for weeks at a time. My personal rule of thumb (after volunteering to work until 2am on Saturdays and then again Sunday mornings to finish a project and launch on Monday, just to have it delayed by another three months) has been to work a weekend once a year. I think that's about the frequency with which true emergencies happen, the kind that affect the bottom line and the livelihood of the organization. Anything more than that and it's just someone trying to squeeze more out of you than you can give.

In this case I took a stand and while I think I did the right thing by saying that I did not want my team working with this pattern, I also misrepresented how dedicated my team was to finishing the product. This created quite a bit of conflict between upper management and the dev team.

Thanks for the kinds words.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#126

Post by mattgreenrocks »

IgorPartola wrote: post #70
hluska wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only know your side of the story, so I know this assessment won't be entirely accurate. However, based on what you have written, it sounds like you were a pretty good manager who just got caught between your employees and your bosses. I especially like how you recognize your team members' intelligence, and tried to advocate for them with senior management. You likely made some mistakes along the way, but every mana…

One thing I realized later that I did wrong was pushing back on the upper management too much. For example I said I did not want my team working weekends on regular basis as had been the practice up to that point. We ended up not having to anyways but it painted the team in a bad light. Really this translated into me taking a long time to understand what the priorities of the business were vs the development prioriti…

There is absolutely nothing wrong with sticking up for your team. Management does not get to foist their lack of vision/preparation/thoughtfulness onto subordinates in the form of, "but we need this yesterday."

How many business functions are actually so important that they require weekend developers?

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#127

Post by blisterpeanuts »

Micromanagement is the #1 problem I've seen with inexperienced managers (and some experienced ones, too). I'm surprised the article didn't mention that, although a couple of the commenters did, at least.

You have to hire good people that you can trust to do the job, up front. Then you have to trust them to do the job. It's as simple as that.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#128

Post by Tactic »

IgorPartola wrote: post #27

So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead) developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself. What bugged me is that I could never tell if the pr…

You were in a losing situation from the start. You were selected to be the heavy, the patsy and the scapegoat all in one.

It is clear from what you have said that your people were overworked, deadlines were not reasonable and there were not enough proper employees. Yet management persisted with their existing paradigm and you got to be the one that bore the bad news to everyone so they all resented you.

The best you can do in that situation is exit. Which it sounds like you and others figured out.

Sleep well knowing you cared about the people and the results, it was upper managment that did not. They cared only about the money.

As a side note, I hear this excuse a lot, about how money will be lost if we don't do this bad thing or that. Money is brief, setting up the proper business practices is long term. Sure, there are temporary situations that require extra effort... but they are obvious and temporary.

Re: What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make?

#130

Post by Tactic »

The biggest mistake I see managers make is that they think they are there to deliver completed projects to upper management. They are playing project manager when they should be playing people manager.

A good manager's job is to make sure their direct reports have everything they need to get their job done. The proper information, tools, training, time, motivation, etc. If they have the proper staff the rest of the success will stem from that.

I have employed that as a manager and expect it as a direct report and have only ever seen success when it is employeed both in the military and the private sector.

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