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I've said this before, but a manager's work is split into thirds: 1/3 is in service of the team. Some of this is bureaucratic (approving expense reports, hirin

I've said this before, but a manager's work is split into thirds: 1/3 is in service of the team. Some of this is bureaucratic (approving expense reports, hiring/firing/promoting), and some of this is being a team facilitator. In meetings, watching that everyone is talking and that one person isn't dominating. Helping with conflict management. Pulling together people from three teams for a meeting and leading it. Again, that's about 1/3 of the job. Half of this could be done by team members, but these are skills that require knowing tech but aren't tech. 1/3 is getting senior management what they need. Does the project need another developer? What is the high level status of the team? Is there technical debt that needs prioritizing that requires more than what the individual team can commit to? These are things that can be done by developers, but it's going to look a lot like what the manager does, and someone is going to be pulled off of more and more development work to do these. And the last third is to the rest of the management team. These are the work to make the department run that people don't notice. I worked at a place that had a very lean management:worker ratio, and instead developers ended up doing a lot of the management work, effectively becoming managers without the pay bump or recognition.

adrianmonk 7y ago
I like the way you've broken this down, and I realize you're just giving examples, but your first third (service of the team) doesn't include any long-term development of employees. (Probably just because your purpose here isn't to make an exhaustive list, but it got me thinking about this.) I mention this because I think one thing that separates mediocre managers from really good ones is that the good ones understand each employee's strengths and weaknesses and try to help them chart a course for success. That means finding their place on the team and it also means growth. It's to everyone's benefit if, 6 months or a year from now, that employee is a better employee. A manager is in a unique position to coach and mentor, and to create the conditions for growth and encourage it. A self-starter employee will do some of this on their own, but they usually need the manager to participate too by doing stuff like recognizing realistic opportunities for an employee to take on more responsibility and taking a chance by trusting them with it. A lot of managers don't seem to even attempt to do any of this or aren't even aware that it's a thing, and then their team languishes and stagnates and they wonder why they aren't getting anything out of their people.
- ebiester 7y ago
  Certainly, long term development of employees is part of that third, and a significant one at that. But much of growth is subtle - it's about looking at projects and going, "Person A can get it done quickly but Person B would grow and appreciate the task, and Person C feels a bit of ownership over a part of it, and will grab due to an assertive personality if I let them sort it out themselves. So I'm going to have to massage a few egos here.) That doesn't take a lot of time but it is definitely emotional labor. Emotional labor can be hard to quantify, and so outside of 1:1s and ad-hoc goal setting meetings and reviews, it's both important and hard to quantify in terms of time. Further, it's another task that can be a peer task - that is, it's something that technical leads can do for their teams and management can reassign the rest. The original comment was talking about taking out most of management, so it's probably something they wouldn't consider as a key management priority that couldn't be done by developers.
remotedeveloper 7y ago
> I worked at a place that had a very lean management:worker ratio, and instead developers ended up doing a lot of the management work, effectively becoming managers without the pay bump or recognition. Also branded as "Flat Structure"

adrianmonk 7y ago

I like the way you've broken this down, and I realize you're just giving examples, but your first third (service of the team) doesn't include any long-term development of employees. (Probably just because your purpose here isn't to make an exhaustive list, but it got me thinking about this.) I mention this because I think one thing that separates mediocre managers from really good ones is that the good ones understand each employee's strengths and weaknesses and try to help them chart a course for success. That means finding their place on the team and it also means growth. It's to everyone's benefit if, 6 months or a year from now, that employee is a better employee. A manager is in a unique position to coach and mentor, and to create the conditions for growth and encourage it. A self-starter employee will do some of this on their own, but they usually need the manager to participate too by doing stuff like recognizing realistic opportunities for an employee to take on more responsibility and taking a chance by trusting them with it. A lot of managers don't seem to even attempt to do any of this or aren't even aware that it's a thing, and then their team languishes and stagnates and they wonder why they aren't getting anything out of their people.

ebiester 7y ago
Certainly, long term development of employees is part of that third, and a significant one at that. But much of growth is subtle - it's about looking at projects and going, "Person A can get it done quickly but Person B would grow and appreciate the task, and Person C feels a bit of ownership over a part of it, and will grab due to an assertive personality if I let them sort it out themselves. So I'm going to have to massage a few egos here.) That doesn't take a lot of time but it is definitely emotional labor. Emotional labor can be hard to quantify, and so outside of 1:1s and ad-hoc goal setting meetings and reviews, it's both important and hard to quantify in terms of time. Further, it's another task that can be a peer task - that is, it's something that technical leads can do for their teams and management can reassign the rest. The original comment was talking about taking out most of management, so it's probably something they wouldn't consider as a key management priority that couldn't be done by developers.

remotedeveloper 7y ago

> I worked at a place that had a very lean management:worker ratio, and instead developers ended up doing a lot of the management work, effectively becoming managers without the pay bump or recognition. Also branded as "Flat Structure"