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I don't like you very much

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Re: I don't like you very much

#41

Post by [deleted] »

ramanujan wrote: post #38
scotch_drinker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Because a Scrumaster or an agile project manager who doesn't post code immediately is irrelevant? That's an odd conclusion to make. It seems clear to me after reading several of his posts that he manages people. While it is certainly true that there are a subset of managers who are also PHBs, I don't think you could highly correlate those who are and those who aren't by the number of posts they make about wor…

> Why is it that people disparage managers who don't write about code? Because it increases the probability that they don't understand what they're managing. Look at Peter Norvig or Urs Hoelzle or Jeff Dean. They are still very, very technical despite managing many people. That earns them credibility among their troops. By contrast, this guy has written about 70 posts on Agile with almost zero code. I could find exac…

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Re: I don't like you very much

#42

Post by ramanujan »

raganwald wrote: post #39
ramanujan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it that people disparage managers who don't write about code? Because it increases the probability that they don't understand what they're managing. Look at Peter Norvig or Urs Hoelzle or Jeff Dean. They are still very, very technical despite managing many people. That earns them credibility among their troops. By contrast, this guy has written about 70 posts on Agile with almost zero code. I could find exac…

I agree that he's unlikely to be someone who would earn an engineer's technical respect. By any chance are there other competencies a manager of technical projects ought to have?

Sure, but now we're talking about a programmer analog of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

The first trait of a manager in high tech (whether professor or product manager) has to be technical competence.

That trait is not usually sufficient to be a good manager. But I think it's necessary (you seem to disagree?)

Re: I don't like you very much

#43

Post by petewarden »

ramanujan wrote: post #42
raganwald wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that he's unlikely to be someone who would earn an engineer's technical respect. By any chance are there other competencies a manager of technical projects ought to have?

Sure, but now we're talking about a programmer analog of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The first trait of a manager in high tech (whether professor or product manager) has to be technical competence. That trait is not usually sufficient to be a good manager. But I think it's necessary (you seem to disagree?)

I would disagree. Many of the good managers I've worked under haven't had much coding experience. What they have had is the ability to trust the team to get them briefed on technical issues as they come up.

I could see this being different in other environments (eg I can't imagine a research team manager not being an alpha geek) but for most corporate environments there are a lot of other skills I'd look for before technical competence.

For example, one of my inspirations early in my career was an EPM (engineering project manager in the company's lingo) who had zero technical background. What she did have was an amazing ability to listen to everyone involved in the project, pick out the chains of dependencies, negotiate schedules with us, follow up relentlessly on any open questions and summarize what we'd just said better than we ever could. She made a massive difference, and the team's productivity dropped like a stone when someone less talented took over.

Re: I don't like you very much

#45

Post by scotch_drinker »

ramanujan wrote: post #38
scotch_drinker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Because a Scrumaster or an agile project manager who doesn't post code immediately is irrelevant? That's an odd conclusion to make. It seems clear to me after reading several of his posts that he manages people. While it is certainly true that there are a subset of managers who are also PHBs, I don't think you could highly correlate those who are and those who aren't by the number of posts they make about wor…

> Why is it that people disparage managers who don't write about code? Because it increases the probability that they don't understand what they're managing. Look at Peter Norvig or Urs Hoelzle or Jeff Dean. They are still very, very technical despite managing many people. That earns them credibility among their troops. By contrast, this guy has written about 70 posts on Agile with almost zero code. I could find exac…

He doesn't have to earn technical respect. If he's a good manager, he doesn't need to handle the technical side. Managing people is an entirely different skill set, one that has little to do with understanding the technologies and more to do with handling expectations, providing a buffer layer between the team and everyone else, etc. I'd much rather work for someone who handles those things very well but has nothing more than a high level understanding of the underlying technologies.

Agile can be two things. It can be a development methodology and it can be a project management methodology. Being good at one does not imply being good at the other. I work with people who are geniuses at managing agile projects but that couldn't code their way out of a shoe box with 3 sides cut out. It's their ability to manage that is important, not their technical chops.

Re: I don't like you very much

#46

Post by DanielBMarkham »

raganwald wrote: post #40
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a trick here. At the surface it sounds naive, sure. The trick is that people can and should passionately defend and believe in the viewpoints, espouse and defend them, and then go along with what the group decides. Either "passionately defending" or "going along" is not sufficient in itself. You have to have both.

There's a phrase for this, it's known as having Strong beliefs, weakly held .

Thanks.

I'm stealing that one. (grin)

Re: I don't like you very much

#47

Post by rpcutts »

derefr wrote: post #24
rpcutts wrote: post #21

I've never met the guy and I don't like him.

Honestly? Would you actually go up to him and say "I don't like you" if you saw him, or are you just being an Internet Tough Guy?

Neither.

I don't randomly walk up to people and discuss my opinion of them. But if someone started a conversation with me about how many people do or don't like them then yes I would have to tell them I find them irritating and walk away. There is nothing 'tough' about it.

Nor am I an Internet tough guy, just giving an opinion is all I'm doing. People that obsess over who like them or not and why, I just don't like them.

Re: I don't like you very much

#48

Post by vasudeva »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #32
gdp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't do anything except post here, so I assume it's a feature of that blog.

I thought you had a great comment, so I manually entered it. My article had a lot of logic and tone problems which you pointed out. I thought readers of the blog should see your comments. Let me know if this bugs you and I will remove it.

That strikes me as a particularly wierd thing to do in the absence of attribution or explanation.

Re: I don't like you very much

#49

Post by kunqiana »

see Paul Graham's essay on See Randomness, (http://paulgraham.com/randomness.html) it might or might not be true for your case but personally it makes me feel better when I am in similar situations by maybe seeing things in better perspective. A lot of times when I am confused about someone's actions toward me I tend to think that it must be about me and to make it worse I exaggerate it in my mind. Sometimes it isn't rational to always expect a rational response from other humans. We are all humans after all, and we make mistakes just like everyone else, a little understanding goes a long way.
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