Yep. Clearing obstacles and managing externals -- although once you give somebody the title there seems to be a lot more involved. The good managers I've seen

Yep. Clearing obstacles and managing externals -- although once you give somebody the title there seems to be a lot more involved. The good managers I've seen don't talk a lot. The best managers are developers who have a natural skill for the work and got voted into the job, They do that obstacle-clearing and coordination on an as-needed basis, working alongside everyone else the rest of the time. The core of the problem is that tech development involves way more skills than there are people, no matter how you want to slice them. When you go for training or start putting folks in roles, the assumption is that your role is at the center of the org. Not the value creation stream. There's an oversimplification and false focus that occurs that's antithetical to getting things done. So yes, that's the manager's job. But it rarely stays like that.