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I keep hearing stories of non-technical managers making elementary mistakes when it comes to technical decisions. Many of the things are so widely established,

by byw 11y ago

I keep hearing stories of non-technical managers making elementary mistakes when it comes to technical decisions. Many of the things are so widely established, they can be learned by spending a little time reading a few books, talking to a few people. So I have to wonder what the obstacles are here. An aversion to reading? Inflexible management dogma? Distractible lifestyles? Poor critical thinking in general?

Ma8ee 11y ago
Those things that we don't know that we don't know. If the managers don't have have appreciation for that what their underlings do require some skills then they won't bother to try to learn.
jzwinck 11y ago
In many cases a non-technical manager will report to a chain of other managers who are also non-technical. It should not be surprising that the criteria on which they are judged do not include technical decision making. Instead, important metrics may include size of team, number of hires per year, revenue of business unit, number of customer-reported defects, etc. I worked at a place where bugs reported internally were not eligible for the highest levels of severity, because after all no customer had noticed (yet). So mistakes reported by customers counted against managers, but ones caught by developers did not, regardless of how much effort was required to fix them.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > It should not be surprising that the criteria on which they are judged do not include technical decision making. Absolutely. Even individual technical contributors are judged on vague criteria. I'd argue that 'being liked by your manager' is more important than being technically excellent. > So mistakes reported by customers counted against managers, but ones caught by developers did not, regardless of how much effort was required to fix them. Exactly. Also, I've never seen technical debt (myopic technical decision-making) affect evaluation of management.
sokoloff 11y ago
Reflexively, I keep hearing stories (and seeing some firsthand) where technical managers are making elementary mistakes when it comes to people matters. Many of these things are so widely established.... It's a problem in both directions. In my view, the non-technical managers need to learn to take more counsel from the technical experts working for them, since most technical matters can be openly discussed. People matters, at least some of the sticky ones, can't be openly discussed with a panel of experts.
debacle 11y ago
Hubris.

by byw 11y ago

Ma8ee 11y ago

Those things that we don't know that we don't know. If the managers don't have have appreciation for that what their underlings do require some skills then they won't bother to try to learn.

jzwinck 11y ago

In many cases a non-technical manager will report to a chain of other managers who are also non-technical. It should not be surprising that the criteria on which they are judged do not include technical decision making. Instead, important metrics may include size of team, number of hires per year, revenue of business unit, number of customer-reported defects, etc. I worked at a place where bugs reported internally were not eligible for the highest levels of severity, because after all no customer had noticed (yet). So mistakes reported by customers counted against managers, but ones caught by developers did not, regardless of how much effort was required to fix them.

humanrebar 11y ago
> It should not be surprising that the criteria on which they are judged do not include technical decision making. Absolutely. Even individual technical contributors are judged on vague criteria. I'd argue that 'being liked by your manager' is more important than being technically excellent. > So mistakes reported by customers counted against managers, but ones caught by developers did not, regardless of how much effort was required to fix them. Exactly. Also, I've never seen technical debt (myopic technical decision-making) affect evaluation of management.

sokoloff 11y ago

Reflexively, I keep hearing stories (and seeing some firsthand) where technical managers are making elementary mistakes when it comes to people matters. Many of these things are so widely established.... It's a problem in both directions. In my view, the non-technical managers need to learn to take more counsel from the technical experts working for them, since most technical matters can be openly discussed. People matters, at least some of the sticky ones, can't be openly discussed with a panel of experts.

debacle 11y ago

Hubris.