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Principles of Engineering Management
71–80 of 134 posts
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#72We are putting too much into the word "management" - supervision (did you turn up on time, are you capable of doing the basic functions needed) - coaching (this team needs someone to do X, but I have two Ys. One goes or one changes) - administration (budgets, projects, scheduling etc). Certainly the part most at threat from software - looking at you Project Manahers - strategic decision making (yeah that's the part e…
This resonates with a basic "anti management" feeling I have. I don't hate managers as people. I often really like them. But I hate what the title "manager" does to people. Like "domestic engineers" and "waste engineers" of the past, it's basically become a title grab for "get paid more money." In particular for managers, it usually establishes a "the principal said I can climb higher than you on the jungle gym, and from this point, I'm to wield authority over how you play on said gym." They may even protest "how bad it is up here" and "how I'm suffering for you."
What I really wish would happen, is that we'd abolish the title "manager" as overly vague and oft abused, and instead just call it what it is.
- Public Relations (go to meetings)
- Clerk (push papers, manage minutia)
- Meeting Caller/Planner
- etc
Anecdotally, an off the cuff euphemism from my Advanced Fluid Dynamics Professor in the early 90's still holds too true all to oft in my experience. He had great rapport with our class of ~100 students. After one test, the class was collectively whining about grading to a curve. After humoring us for a bit, he said something like "Look, you A students, you're going to go out in industry for a bit, but the lack of idealism is going to frustrate you, and you'll be back here soon with me. You B students know what compromise is. When it's good enough. That's why you're going to make great engineers." And then he turned to begin his lecture like that was it. And someone yelled out "wait, what about us C students." "Management" was his terse reply.
(Apologies to the venn intersection of managers HN readers "A" students.)
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar feeling. These principles somehow do not help me make decisions or build mechanisms for my teams. On the other hand, the principles in the book Turn the Ship Around, the book No Rules Rule, and Amazon's 14 leadership principles helped me a lot because they give clear guidelines on how to make trade-offs. In particular, Turn the Ship Around advocates pursuing excellence instead of minimizing errors. Netflix ad…
I was a bit skeptical of "Turn the Ship Around" because of its title, and despite all the positive reviews, but it's one of the best management books I've ever read. It's definitely worth a read, even if you're not a manager, as it applies to any team-related activity, and provides a useful toolkit for improving your team, whether you're the leader or not.
Yeah, the book also passes Taleb's Skin in the Game test: the author is also the practitioner of what he wrote about.
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#74I consumed a lot of blog posts like this before becoming a manager. It feels satisfying to read vague principles like this: > Facilitate wellbeing > Personal safety, dignity, and wellbeing of every team member are paramount. Team success is only success if team members feel good about it. But then you become an actual manager and realize that these are largely just feel-good aphorisms that don't really help navigate…
> The hard work often involves making unpopular decisions, or telling someone "no" when their pet request wouldn't be in the best interests of the team I realise I'm just plucking a small point out of a large comment here, but I'd like to drill down into this one a little. My very limited experience is that teams can generally self-manage this sort of thing. You tell them what you're trying to optimise, under what co…
> My very limited experience is that teams can generally self-manage this sort of thing.
My experience is that they can absolutely not self-manage these things, it leads to literally living out lord of the flies in chaotic and dysfunctional teams, that are full of infected conflicts and stalled progress.
On the other hand, what exactly is it that gives you the impression that decision making is suddenly not needed? And what makes you believe that a group of people with different goals and interests, should spontaneously just "get along", especially when there's money involved?
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect you're right and the article conflates the means (managing) to the end (achieving an outcome). It's not unlike the military priority of 1) mission accomplishment and 2) troop welfare. But in fairness, "achieving outcome" is equally vague and it seems most leaders know they want Outcome X, but falter because they don't know how to get from their current state to that end state. Can you elaborate on how you'd…
> It's not unlike the military priority of 1) mission accomplishment and 2) troop welfare. I hear what you're saying, but I would be careful taking a military type model and applying it to a team of software US engineers mainly because I think the power balance is so different. If I'm in the military and I tell one of my subordinates that they need to dig trenches in the rain all weekend for the next 6 weeks, they ma…
This is a perspective that is bandied about quite a bit, but I don't think it's exactly true (or at least not true to the extent presumed). Personally, I've only heard it come from people who have little actual military experience.
Leadership capital is a perishable resource in the military. Junior troops are not dumb and if you treat them like crap and just use the justification that they signed the contract, you won't be a very effective leader. If I leader has to use that type of tactic (or use their rank, or whatever), it's an indicator they've messed up somewhere along the way. The power dynamic isn't as cut-and-dry as most outside the military think. It's not unheard of for junior troops to get a bad leader fired, and in the absolute worst cases junior troops can put a poor leader's lives in danger. The idea that good military leaders would tell their subordinates to pound sand because they signed a contract is more of a trope than reality.
There's a surprising amount of times when the incentives align for a military subordinate to NOT listen to orders and leaders have to actually rely on the social capital they've accumulated by building trusting relationships with their subordinates.
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe use your one-on-one to discuss those things.
I don't think 1-1 is the right time. If you have a team of 15 people, you would need to repeat the same thing 15 times. Better to give an update of what you are working on (as a manager) for the whole team once.
That's a large team. I don't think it makes sense to have 15 direct reports. You probably want to split that into 2 teams so you can feed your team with two pizza boxes.
If you do have a team that large, then you need to have a weekly or biweekly meeting with an agenda set beforehand. You can make announcements and possibly have a rotating presentation by somebody from the team about what they've been working on.
If you are managing this many people, you are managing people, projects and comms.
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#77I consumed a lot of blog posts like this before becoming a manager. It feels satisfying to read vague principles like this: > Facilitate wellbeing > Personal safety, dignity, and wellbeing of every team member are paramount. Team success is only success if team members feel good about it. But then you become an actual manager and realize that these are largely just feel-good aphorisms that don't really help navigate…
> The hard work often involves making unpopular decisions, or telling someone "no" when their pet request wouldn't be in the best interests of the team I realise I'm just plucking a small point out of a large comment here, but I'd like to drill down into this one a little. My very limited experience is that teams can generally self-manage this sort of thing. You tell them what you're trying to optimise, under what co…
It entirely depends on the dynamics of the team.
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#78We are putting too much into the word "management" - supervision (did you turn up on time, are you capable of doing the basic functions needed) - coaching (this team needs someone to do X, but I have two Ys. One goes or one changes) - administration (budgets, projects, scheduling etc). Certainly the part most at threat from software - looking at you Project Manahers - strategic decision making (yeah that's the part e…
This resonates with a basic "anti management" feeling I have. I don't hate managers as people. I often really like them. But I hate what the title "manager" does to people. Like "domestic engineers" and "waste engineers" of the past, it's basically become a title grab for "get paid more money." In particular for managers, it usually establishes a "the principal said I can climb higher than you on the jungle gym, and…
What does engineering leadership mean to you? What factors make it easier or harder to practice engineering leadership?
For me, I like having a budget and a staff - it’s way easier to influence my organization with a budget and a staff, than without.
I’m saying this only to encourage engineering leaders not to be afraid of formal management roles. You can make them your own. You might find what I found.
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#79This is typical, MBA armchair psychology. Here's the real Principals of Engineering Management, according to pretty much every middle manager, director, and vp I've ever worked with: 1. Be caviling and pedantic, so you can reinforce your position of petty power. 2. Contribute exactly zero code, infrastructure, etc. Basically, anything that actually provides value to the engineers or the customers, you don't touch. 3.…
For some reason they downvote you, but your post has some truth. I really wish EM wasn’t only about people management, hiring and goals but actual technical leadership. I want my manager to care for my wellbeing, be empathetic etc. as the post and common sense suggest, but i prefer he could provide some technical direction to the team (not let the team leads figure it out themselves), collaborate closely with product…
If you have the energy and curiosity to be an EM, please do give it a try. The industry needs compassionate and highly technical EMs.
Re: Principles of Engineering Management
#80I’ve been managing a while and a striking difference between profitable established companies versus quasi profitable growth companies is the culture of delivering value. It goes without saying that you want your reports to thrive at work, and as a manager you want to build a great atmosphere and culture.
But what I often miss from posts like this is focusing on the value the group of individuals is meant to create (maybe it’s implied).