How To Manage Geeks
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How To Manage Geeks
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#2First thing I thought when I read this headline was: Be a geek.
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#3Maybe it's time people stopped thinking of "geeks" as a homogenous, broadly categorizable group of people. IMO, that worldview is as much a part of the problem as anything else.
I wouldn't assume a random set of 10 doctors are all going to have the same personalities, the same motivators, and the same quirks. I wouldn't assume 10 randomly grouped MBAs are identical, either. Perhaps non-technical managers would do well to stop thinking of all technical employees as interchangeable. That's the first step toward being a better manager -- be it of engineers, of marketers, of financial analysts, or of sales staff.
A lot of the principles on this list are great, but honestly, the list could just as easily be rebadged as "How to Manage People." And perhaps that's what makes it a good list.
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#4I found the books by Tom DeMarco (who became famous for his novel "The Deadline") to be very insightful as well as instructive on that topic.
In particular, his book "Slack" (2001) has a chapter "Managing Eve" where he describes how to manage exactly that kind of great employees we use to call "geeks". He doesn't mention the word "geek", though. Instead, he calls those people "Eve" ... for quite interesting reasons!
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#5Don't manage. Lead them.
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#6Isn't Wikihow one of those content farms...
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#7That seems like a pretty sane list... has anyone here ever worked for a place like that? I didn't even manage that way when I was my own boss.
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#8Maybe it's time people stopped thinking of "geeks" as a homogenous, broadly categorizable group of people. IMO, that worldview is as much a part of the problem as anything else. I wouldn't assume a random set of 10 doctors are all going to have the same personalities, the same motivators, and the same quirks. I wouldn't assume 10 randomly grouped MBAs are identical, either. Perhaps non-technical managers would do wel…
+1
Labeling and classifying folks with common educational backgrounds and career "orientation" is a common error when managing people. Technically oriented people can be marginal programmers but excellent team/project leaders or managers. Marginalizing staff - thinking they can't manage people - because they have a technology affinity, however, is a common bias. Good managers don't buy into stereotypes.
Re: How To Manage Geeks
#9It's usually
-"how much free reign should I give him? am i smothering his talent?"
-"how does this personnel manage emotional integrity - how does this person fund his expertise internally?"
-"what are the 'distastes' this person have grown up to this point in his life?"
-"does this person have secure mental integrity/health points or whatever is required to do the deed?"Re: How To Manage Geeks
#10Also:
- Don't bother the crap out of your geeks for things outside work.
It's not ok to have your geeks routinely fix and do market research for anything computer-related (or even electricity-powered!) for your whole family and friends. Especially outside work schedule. Just because it involves stuff that someone happens to know his way around, it is foolish to assume that he also enjoys doing the laundry of people that he doesn't personally care about. It is stupid to think that geeks enjoy anything computer/technology related and it is offensive to think that their time is any less valuable than yours. If anything, the typical geek has many interesting personal side-projects and ideas, unlike the typical manager, so his time is a thousand times more important.
- Do not force your geeks to implement ugly workarounds and cut corners if you don't understand the consequences and, in case you do, don't force the responsibility for these on your geeks. If you demand that something that normally takes x time is done in x/2 time, your geek will try to explain to you why this is not a good idea. Your geek will gladly analyze the possible consequences of the compromises that would have to be made, but it's not possible to give you i.e. a real-world estimate on how long you are going to get away with them, and in the end, it's not his job to tell you if the risk is really worth it, only to help you understand the risk. In any case, if your geek warns you and you chose to ignore his advice, don't hold him responsible if the exact same thing that he warned you about happens.
- If you say something is really, really important, your geek can manage to work day and night to make it possible. He may even fail to make it clear that he had to, as he wants to believe it was a rare occasion, a real emergency. That doesn't mean this is the norm and you can keep rushing the next projects in advance.
- Your geek will most likely have a list of things that are not working well that he wants to optimize. Those things may appear to be working just fine on the outside, while in fact they are ticking bombs or time-sinks -routine manual procedures begging automation. Do not think that if there are not current projects running you need to fill the time of your geeks with just any chores you can think about, chances are they could have done more valuable thinks on their own.