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Trying to write code alongside their devs. Here's what happens when a manager tries to fill tickets himself: his sense of control of the project is derived not

Trying to write code alongside their devs. Here's what happens when a manager tries to fill tickets himself: his sense of control of the project is derived not from relationships of trust and cooperation with his reports, but from direct involvement in the code. So naturally, any challenging or critical piece of code ends up getting written by him (because otherwise, how could he be confident about it?) The manager is essentially holding two jobs at once so they end up working late or being overly stressed at work. The devs will feel intimidated to make architecture decisions, because they know if they do something their manager doesn't like, it will get refactored. They will also feel as if they are only given the "grunt work" as all the challenging work is taken on by their manager. The code itself is in a constant state of instability because there is a tension between the manager needing the other employees' help to get the code written on time, while also needing to have that complete control and mastery over the code that can only come from writing it yourself. So people's work gets overwritten continually. This is very bad and it's very common - managers should learn to delegate as that is an essential part of their job. If they can't delegate they should remain as an individual contributor and not move into management.

ransom1538 9y ago
I couldn't agree more here. As a manager you need to do all the shit work. The work the team hates. Ad integration, 3rd party phone calls, aws cost cutting, etc. All the grunt work too. Going through every god damn qa ticket. If you do this your team will perform at a higher level. Pushing crap work to the team will demotivate them and force multitasking.
- UK-AL 9y ago
  I don't really find those tasks shit work. I actually find them quite interesting.
adamb_ 9y ago
Spot on. As a manager, it's your responsibility to delegate effectively.
kaspm 9y ago
Interesting, as a manager, I try very hard to do as much of the grunt work as possible and the devs do more feature coding. Out of curiosity, where do you rank data modeling? I tend to want to either design or review all data design, either relational or other, partly because of my background in data engineering and partly because I have business awareness that the devs don't have. It's just not possible to convey every nuance of a constantly evolving business to each dev on the team without it being distracting. How would you like your manager to handle being involved in data modeling? Develop a spec and then review? pair modeling?
- tboyd47 9y ago
  Maybe data modeling is something that's officially a "manager-level task" at your company, so it's something you have to be involved in. But I would try to err on the side of delegating too much, rather than too little. If you have knowledge in a certain area that gives you special insight into how to improve implementation of code, I would challenge you to try to disseminate that amongst your team and hold them accountable for following it themselves, rather than setting yourself up as a gatekeeper. All this assumes you trust your team to be thoughtful and do good work. If not then that's a whole 'nother issue.
  - kaspm 9y ago
    Thanks that's helpful!
- Terr_ 9y ago
  > How would you like your manager to handle being involved in data modeling? When it comes to business-domain concepts, like "what is a project" or "what subtypes of customers do we have", that's stuff where I feel a manager should be helping to involve more people. I'm speaking from the perspective of working on a business' proprietary ERP system, and it feels like nobody really knows how the business "ought" to work, they just follow the traditions enshrined in the code and then ask for their itches to be scratched.
  - kaspm 9y ago
drpentode 9y ago
As a manager, what's the best way to respond when your VP or CEO asks you why you don't code a lot? I've been pressured to both code and manage. It takes two totally different mindsets to do that. It is really hard, and it usually means I end up not doing a good job at either.
- tboyd47 9y ago
  Yep - that's true. I dunno, and I'm facing the same issue myself. Wish I had a solution.
Cshelton 9y ago
For a manager that was a developer, this is one of the hardest things to learn. Knowing how and when to delegate properly. When I first took on a manager role, I for sure made this mistake. Anything hard had to have me fully involved. Grunt work was definitely given out, and yeah, I ended up being stressed out far too often. I think it's important to have manager training for new managers. Somebody to whisper over their shoulder and say, "give them a shot, trust them on this"

ransom1538 9y ago

I couldn't agree more here. As a manager you need to do all the shit work. The work the team hates. Ad integration, 3rd party phone calls, aws cost cutting, etc. All the grunt work too. Going through every god damn qa ticket. If you do this your team will perform at a higher level. Pushing crap work to the team will demotivate them and force multitasking.

UK-AL 9y ago
I don't really find those tasks shit work. I actually find them quite interesting.

adamb_ 9y ago

Spot on. As a manager, it's your responsibility to delegate effectively.

kaspm 9y ago

Interesting, as a manager, I try very hard to do as much of the grunt work as possible and the devs do more feature coding. Out of curiosity, where do you rank data modeling? I tend to want to either design or review all data design, either relational or other, partly because of my background in data engineering and partly because I have business awareness that the devs don't have. It's just not possible to convey every nuance of a constantly evolving business to each dev on the team without it being distracting. How would you like your manager to handle being involved in data modeling? Develop a spec and then review? pair modeling?

tboyd47 9y ago
Maybe data modeling is something that's officially a "manager-level task" at your company, so it's something you have to be involved in. But I would try to err on the side of delegating too much, rather than too little. If you have knowledge in a certain area that gives you special insight into how to improve implementation of code, I would challenge you to try to disseminate that amongst your team and hold them accountable for following it themselves, rather than setting yourself up as a gatekeeper. All this assumes you trust your team to be thoughtful and do good work. If not then that's a whole 'nother issue.
- kaspm 9y ago
  Thanks that's helpful!
Terr_ 9y ago
> How would you like your manager to handle being involved in data modeling? When it comes to business-domain concepts, like "what is a project" or "what subtypes of customers do we have", that's stuff where I feel a manager should be helping to involve more people. I'm speaking from the perspective of working on a business' proprietary ERP system, and it feels like nobody really knows how the business "ought" to work, they just follow the traditions enshrined in the code and then ask for their itches to be scratched.
- kaspm 9y ago

drpentode 9y ago

As a manager, what's the best way to respond when your VP or CEO asks you why you don't code a lot? I've been pressured to both code and manage. It takes two totally different mindsets to do that. It is really hard, and it usually means I end up not doing a good job at either.

tboyd47 9y ago
Yep - that's true. I dunno, and I'm facing the same issue myself. Wish I had a solution.

Cshelton 9y ago

For a manager that was a developer, this is one of the hardest things to learn. Knowing how and when to delegate properly. When I first took on a manager role, I for sure made this mistake. Anything hard had to have me fully involved. Grunt work was definitely given out, and yeah, I ended up being stressed out far too often. I think it's important to have manager training for new managers. Somebody to whisper over their shoulder and say, "give them a shot, trust them on this"