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We don't need a Tech Lead

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Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#101

Post by foota »

matt_kantor wrote: post #70
brandall10 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with it either. Case in point - I've been in a situation as detailed toward the end of the article where all the devs on the team were feature leads, except we still had a designated overall lead. Just 4 devs on the team, all of us were very sr (principal or sr. principal devs). But the overall number of stakeholders in the product were probably well over 30 people, so it was still a big coordination ef…

That sounds like a project manager to me. I'm curious if you have anyone with that job title (and if so what they do) or if your "team lead" is acting as a de facto project manager to fill a void. If you don't have a dedicated project manager (which I suspect is the case), I'm also curious if you think your team lead is overworked. Maybe your team doesn't need full-time project management so it's more efficient to ha…

my former workplace would call this a scrum master (of course we were doing scrum not waterfall) perhaps dam engineer for waterfall?

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#102

Post by jdmichal »

crdoconnor wrote: post #58
zaphar wrote: post #2

I don't know that I fully agree with this. I think in even well functioning teams you need at least one person who is empowered to make the call. In the cases of a disagreement deadlock you need someone to break the deadlock. Whether that person is a called a Tech Lead or something else you still need them and they need authority and freedom to make the call. Maybe his Mediator can be that person but if you give the…

I don't know that I fully agree with you. I've seen some "deadlock breaking" where necessary discussions were cut short by, like, 5 or 10 minutes and the resulting "compromise" architectural decisions ended up being disastrous. I've also seen team leads set agendas and drive discussion in such a way as to bury important issues that would otherwise come out while wasting time on minutiae. In contrast I've never really…

A "decider" is not supposed to be a "compromiser". That's just design-by-committee with a benevolent dictator.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#103

Post by crpatino »

crdoconnor wrote: post #63
vidarh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. But we live in reality where lots of teams are not well functioning some or all of the time, and we still need to get things done even when we don't have the time, resources or influence to fix the team composition then and there. EDIT: I'd also argue that in most well functioning team few decisions needs to be taken by the team, because the team members know their role well enough and trusts the others to do…

>Great. But we live in reality where lots of teams are not well functioning some or all of the time Managers abusing their power causes way more dysfunction than a lack of authority ever does. >Unfortunately again, we live in the real world where decision making is often needed exactly because a lot of the time there are team members we can't let run rampant and make their own decisions. That isn't what managing by c…

> That isn't what managing by consensus means. In the real world bad eggs don't "run rampant", they are reined in by peer pressure, and poor developers very often recognize that they are poor developers

This does not conform to my experience at all. Once you have assembled a team of solid B+ players (not great guys, but get the job done more often than not) they will laser focus in the sole B- guy in the team and designate him the "village idiot". Then, every questionable practice that is marginially better than the most visible shortcomings of the village idiot will be fair play.

The thing is, every B+ player has defects, but everyone is defective in their own particular way. But since the effects in the project are cumulative, and nobody feels empowered enough to call other people on their shortcomings they will end up building a C- product that all love to hate.

Bring in an A+ team lead or two, empower them to enforce high standards on everybody, and every other team member will either leave or grow into their A- full potential.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#104

Post by pandeiro »

I don't think you can foster a culture of ownership and responsibility where developers are "protected" from decision-making and involvement in other activities. The code isn't written in a vacuum, but as a function of the larger functions of building a business and organization. Furthermore, for essential tasks like evaluating new team members, devs must be involved as they will often be the ones most affected by the eventual decisions.

I'll use a hackneyed sports metaphor b/c my creativity has atrophied over years of nothing but coding: on a basketball team, the shooting guard should definitely be taking a good percentage of jumpers and concentrate on delivering a high percentage of buckets, but they may also be a great passer, a leader in the locker room, mentor for younger players, etc (up to and including weighing in on personnel matters), if they have those capabilities and trust. Probably better than just shooting baskets in a gym their entire career, right?

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#105

Post by sagivo »

Jemaclus wrote: post #89
zaphar wrote: post #2

I don't know that I fully agree with this. I think in even well functioning teams you need at least one person who is empowered to make the call. In the cases of a disagreement deadlock you need someone to break the deadlock. Whether that person is a called a Tech Lead or something else you still need them and they need authority and freedom to make the call. Maybe his Mediator can be that person but if you give the…

Agree with this. A few days after I started, the engineering manager (the guy who hired me) quit. After that, it was kind of a clusterfuck because the CEO refused to make any real decisions because he was afraid of upsetting any of the engineers. As a result, very few decisions got made, and any deadlocks resulted in hours of frustrating and anger on both sides. I tried to put my foot down on one of the projects that…

Exactly same experience I had in my previous company. And main reason why it's previous...

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#106

Post by ser0 »

SmellTheGlove wrote: post #97

Nah, this is wrong. Management is a discipline in its own right, and teams function better with management. It's not a slight to say that teams need a lead, either. I'm sure that developers can self-organize and use their personal leadership skills to help guide the team, but that isn't optimal. In my experience (as a manager), here's why: 1. First and foremost, it takes time to lead. If I have a 6-8 person dev team,…

I think the distinction between manager and developer is an important one. Expecting a developer to become a high functioning manager is equally unrealistic to expect a technically minded manager to be able to make meaningful contributions to the code base.

I also fully agree that management is a discipline that is overlooked; often oddly by managers themselves. I attribute this phenomenon to my observation that many managers in startups growing into the role rather than coming from a formal MBA type background. I would go one step further and say that a manager doesn't necessarily have to be a leader either, with leadership being another unique discipline.

A lot of comments here cover similar ground by using similar titles for different roles, which is understandable as different organisations have different needs and may assign a title that is not the most appropriate.

The author basically makes the same argument by admitting that different scenarios require different skill sets such as mediation, architecture, advocation, etc. However, the author takes a idealistic view that admits ideally any competent team member should be able to step up to the role when required.

In my experience though, in an organisation that requires structure, predictability, and on a compensation level as well, dedicated titles are important. It becomes even more important depending on the broader organisation and national culture. For teams that come from countries with high power distance, the difference in having opinions come from a "team leader" versus a co-worker can be received quite differently.

Therefore, I think the article has been able to create such an active discussion is because of the circumstantial nature of an appropriate answer. Coincidentally such discussions are often a trigger for teams to wish that there were a leader who can make a decision and for others to fall in line so that everyone can get on with actual work.

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#107

Post by late2part »

Brooks covered this well in Mythical Man Month about the Surgeon, also detailed in [1].

It's nice to have a meritocracy, and when you can have a college of fair altruistic equals, it's great.

When you don't have that and need to get things done, get a dictator or a surgeon.

[1] http://wiki.c2.com/?SurgicalTeam

Re: We don't need a Tech Lead

#108

Post by gohrt »

mnsc wrote: post #49
zaphar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk you take on when the mediator role doesn't have practical experience is that no consensus will be reached. Or worse if that mediator is empowered to break a deadlock he'll do so badly because he doesn't have enough context to make a good decision and not enough time to come up to speed in order to make a good decision.

My point is that the mediator shouldn't make the decision that is not in the role. If the deadlock is concerning i.e. two competing architectural decisions the mediator should help the different people with architect roles engaged in the debate to decide how to move forward. Trusting that a single Tech Lead always will have the right context to authoritatively decide the best way forward seems naive to me. Where is t…

Trusting that a pair of engineers will always come to an agreement to authoritatively decide the best way forward seems naive to me. Where are these magical people?
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