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It’s a valid concern. If you don’t have transparency into ongoing work, then you aren’t ready for remote workers. If the only method for your manager to know w

by nabdab 7y ago

It’s a valid concern. If you don’t have transparency into ongoing work, then you aren’t ready for remote workers. If the only method for your manager to know what people are working on is to tap people on shoulders, then doing that isn’t a “bad behavior” for the manager, it’s necessary behavior. Of cause a better solution is to have trust and plans. (Agile, scrum, waterfall, napkin sketches or whatever it doesn’t matter as long as people align during planning and have transparency into the plan). But in the absence you still need to have management in sync with what is going on. Naturally the best pathway forwards is to look into changing your system to include all these value adding elements. But enabling remote work while management is critically dependent on physical presence to continue operation is not a good idea. And the solution is not just for managers to “give up the mindset” of knowing what’s going on below them. Trust is great when it works, and toxic when it doesn’t. The agile mantra of increasing trust is not just supposed to advocate blind trust. It’s about building a framework and working routine where we are validated in trusting each other.

100100010001 7y ago
I disagree with the “tapping on the shoulder isn’t a bad behavior”. It is counterproductive as illustrated by the linked cartoon. https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...
- vidarh 7y ago
  They weren't saying it isn't a bad behavior in general, but that in the absence of visibility into what staff is doing it is a necessity. It's far worse than having proper visibility, but until/unless you have that visibility, it's a lowest-effort way of getting some visibility. Of course the right thing to do is to work to get proper visibility, and when you have that, then the "tap" is pointless interruption.
  - auiya 7y ago
    Managers who tap aren't interested in work visibility. That can be achieved via a simple email. Managers who tap are only interested in hearing themselves talk at others.
thrownaway954 7y ago
My manager _constantly_ will shout out, "does anyone know what X is working on?" It pisses me off to high hell that a manager has to ask his workers what another worker is working on. I honestly think that EVERYONE should be using a ticket tracking system and just put assignments in a person's queue. I don't see why this is such a big deal or looked down upon. It's so easy to see what everyone is working on, run reports to see how long things took, have a place to keep track of notes which builds a knowledge base, the benefits are limmitless. Not to mention the fact that if all you have to do is look at the reports to know what is going on, you don't physically need the person there which will allows them to work from anywhere.
- quadrifoliate 7y ago
  > I honestly think that EVERYONE should be using a ticket tracking system and just put assignments in a person's queue. I don't see why this is such a big deal or looked down upon. As I see it, none of the queuing stuff is really controversial. > It's so easy to see what everyone is working on, run reports to see how long things took This, on the other hand is usually what's controversial, and the reasoning behind that is that it often leads to management using past data as a stick to drive "faster" future development, with silly statements like “Well, the average plugin took 2 days to write, why is this one taking 7 days? Oh it must be that the person doing it is lazy. Better give them negative feedback on it and tell them it can affect their promotions”. The example is contrived, but the motivations and behaviors are very real. Competent developers tend to leave companies where they are constantly badgered about stuff like this by managers who have never developed software. In the extreme case (very few organizations are this bad, but they do exist), all you end up with is the remaining ones who know how to show that they are doing a lot of work, but are generally afraid to show their lack of knowledge in any area for fear of being dinged by the data-equipped management for it. Since this is not conducive to the technical health of a software development team, estimation practices that purport to be unrealistically accurate are what's looked down upon.
  - krageon 7y ago
    > management using past data as a stick to drive "faster" future development Of course bad management is bad, but the idea that the type of metrics available to them make any material difference is not one that has any merit to my mind. A bad manager will always make your life hell, regardless of what measuring tools they have available.
croon 7y ago
> If the only method for your manager to know what people are working on is to tap people on shoulders, then doing that isn’t a “bad behavior” for the manager, it’s necessary behavior. It is bad behavior, for two simple reasons: 1) The tapping of the shoulder (both literal and figurative) doesn't award any information, only the question afterward. So focus on what that question is, and implement whatever information that gets you (if any) into another system that doesn't require you huffing around interrupting the flow of your employees. 2) If that is your only method, you have already failed, and anything you do in that position that is not directly related to getting out of that position, is bad behavior.
growlist 7y ago
One thing that amuses me - you can provide the very simplest tools (such as an issue tracker report) and some managers will still utterly refuse to use them, to the point of open hostility, because it somehow undermines their position to open a link and read an online report as opposed to asking a subordinate to read it to them instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- otaviokz 7y ago
  Unfortunately there's always people living in the 1800s...
  - growlist 7y ago
    True. The enterprise sometimes keeps going in spite of its leaders...
- sanderjd 7y ago
  Yep, my biggest frustration is when people (not just managers) ask questions instead of looking things up. And it can be hard to push back against because they are "just trying to get the answer more efficiently by just asking". Which is true, it's usually more efficient to ask someone who knows something than to find something yourself. The problem is that it preempts work to be done in serial instead of doing a bit more work in parallel. There is a point at which that makes sense, there are things people know that require a lot of legwork for someone else to find out for themselves. But "what are you working on" is pretty much never in that category.

by nabdab 7y ago

100100010001 7y ago

I disagree with the “tapping on the shoulder isn’t a bad behavior”. It is counterproductive as illustrated by the linked cartoon. https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...

vidarh 7y ago
They weren't saying it isn't a bad behavior in general, but that in the absence of visibility into what staff is doing it is a necessity. It's far worse than having proper visibility, but until/unless you have that visibility, it's a lowest-effort way of getting some visibility. Of course the right thing to do is to work to get proper visibility, and when you have that, then the "tap" is pointless interruption.
- auiya 7y ago
  Managers who tap aren't interested in work visibility. That can be achieved via a simple email. Managers who tap are only interested in hearing themselves talk at others.

thrownaway954 7y ago

My manager _constantly_ will shout out, "does anyone know what X is working on?" It pisses me off to high hell that a manager has to ask his workers what another worker is working on. I honestly think that EVERYONE should be using a ticket tracking system and just put assignments in a person's queue. I don't see why this is such a big deal or looked down upon. It's so easy to see what everyone is working on, run reports to see how long things took, have a place to keep track of notes which builds a knowledge base, the benefits are limmitless. Not to mention the fact that if all you have to do is look at the reports to know what is going on, you don't physically need the person there which will allows them to work from anywhere.

quadrifoliate 7y ago
> I honestly think that EVERYONE should be using a ticket tracking system and just put assignments in a person's queue. I don't see why this is such a big deal or looked down upon. As I see it, none of the queuing stuff is really controversial. > It's so easy to see what everyone is working on, run reports to see how long things took This, on the other hand is usually what's controversial, and the reasoning behind that is that it often leads to management using past data as a stick to drive "faster" future development, with silly statements like “Well, the average plugin took 2 days to write, why is this one taking 7 days? Oh it must be that the person doing it is lazy. Better give them negative feedback on it and tell them it can affect their promotions”. The example is contrived, but the motivations and behaviors are very real. Competent developers tend to leave companies where they are constantly badgered about stuff like this by managers who have never developed software. In the extreme case (very few organizations are this bad, but they do exist), all you end up with is the remaining ones who know how to show that they are doing a lot of work, but are generally afraid to show their lack of knowledge in any area for fear of being dinged by the data-equipped management for it. Since this is not conducive to the technical health of a software development team, estimation practices that purport to be unrealistically accurate are what's looked down upon.
- krageon 7y ago
  > management using past data as a stick to drive "faster" future development Of course bad management is bad, but the idea that the type of metrics available to them make any material difference is not one that has any merit to my mind. A bad manager will always make your life hell, regardless of what measuring tools they have available.

croon 7y ago

> If the only method for your manager to know what people are working on is to tap people on shoulders, then doing that isn’t a “bad behavior” for the manager, it’s necessary behavior. It is bad behavior, for two simple reasons: 1) The tapping of the shoulder (both literal and figurative) doesn't award any information, only the question afterward. So focus on what that question is, and implement whatever information that gets you (if any) into another system that doesn't require you huffing around interrupting the flow of your employees. 2) If that is your only method, you have already failed, and anything you do in that position that is not directly related to getting out of that position, is bad behavior.

growlist 7y ago

One thing that amuses me - you can provide the very simplest tools (such as an issue tracker report) and some managers will still utterly refuse to use them, to the point of open hostility, because it somehow undermines their position to open a link and read an online report as opposed to asking a subordinate to read it to them instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

otaviokz 7y ago
Unfortunately there's always people living in the 1800s...
- growlist 7y ago
  True. The enterprise sometimes keeps going in spite of its leaders...
sanderjd 7y ago
Yep, my biggest frustration is when people (not just managers) ask questions instead of looking things up. And it can be hard to push back against because they are "just trying to get the answer more efficiently by just asking". Which is true, it's usually more efficient to ask someone who knows something than to find something yourself. The problem is that it preempts work to be done in serial instead of doing a bit more work in parallel. There is a point at which that makes sense, there are things people know that require a lot of legwork for someone else to find out for themselves. But "what are you working on" is pretty much never in that category.