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You're correct, but I think the other argument is correct as well. I've seen teams where a manager is so technically incompetent as to be useless in their role.

You're correct, but I think the other argument is correct as well. I've seen teams where a manager is so technically incompetent as to be useless in their role. I've also seen teams where the developers were caught in technical minutiae while not contributing actual business value. I don't know if there's a cut-and-dried answer here.

bob1029 6y ago
One other way I look at this is as a balance of forces between technology and business. The developers are delegates to the technology while managers are delegates to the business. Assuming they can both arrive at some common middle ground, then you should have something viable to work with. Sometimes I have to stop my other developers from getting upset with project managers when they are having bad days. If your managers are unhappy, it's very likely that the customer is unhappy as well. Developers should use this as a signal that they may want to re-prioritize efforts or schedule deep-dive meetings with their managers to sort out customer & business concerns. The exact same idea applies to the technology. If the developers are in a bad mood, its quite likely that they are struggling with some abstract technological foe such as a legacy code base or broken devops process. Managers should recognize this as an opportunity to pause the process and try to allow room for the developers to work through whatever technical difficulties they are having. If you have this perspective where everyone involved is a delegate to some other ultimate authority, you may develop a greater sense of empathy for your fellow human.
- potta_coffee 6y ago
  I agree, it mostly boils down to "human" or organizational problems. Technology or code problems aren't stressful in the absence of stress from the organization (time pressure / higher expectations than the team can deliver, etc).

bob1029 6y ago

One other way I look at this is as a balance of forces between technology and business. The developers are delegates to the technology while managers are delegates to the business. Assuming they can both arrive at some common middle ground, then you should have something viable to work with. Sometimes I have to stop my other developers from getting upset with project managers when they are having bad days. If your managers are unhappy, it's very likely that the customer is unhappy as well. Developers should use this as a signal that they may want to re-prioritize efforts or schedule deep-dive meetings with their managers to sort out customer & business concerns. The exact same idea applies to the technology. If the developers are in a bad mood, its quite likely that they are struggling with some abstract technological foe such as a legacy code base or broken devops process. Managers should recognize this as an opportunity to pause the process and try to allow room for the developers to work through whatever technical difficulties they are having. If you have this perspective where everyone involved is a delegate to some other ultimate authority, you may develop a greater sense of empathy for your fellow human.

potta_coffee 6y ago
I agree, it mostly boils down to "human" or organizational problems. Technology or code problems aren't stressful in the absence of stress from the organization (time pressure / higher expectations than the team can deliver, etc).