4 ms·

One of my ex managers said that his role was to attend the meetings,shield the developers from the politics of getting projects approved and other institutional

by dman 16y ago

One of my ex managers said that his role was to attend the meetings,shield the developers from the politics of getting projects approved and other institutional overhead so that we could focus on delivering product.

zach 16y ago
This is a great role for a manager to play for as long they have the power to actually shield the developers from politics. When things go bad politically for the manager and they lose that power, the politics have a way of suddenly rushing in and catching the developers off-guard. So developers, inspect your manager for leaks regularly.
joebadmo 16y ago
Sounds familiar. As a USMC fire team leader, my job was mostly to protect my Marines from all the shit that rolls downhill. It's generally a very difficult job to do well, because of the way the explicit incentives are set up, but somewhat easier for me as I was basically apolitical and had no career plans in the Corps.
- palish 16y ago
  Blog. Please?
  - joebadmo 16y ago
    I keep a blog about miscellaneous stuff at http://blog.byjoemoon.com http://blog.byjoemoon.com (plug) but I don't think that's what you mean. I got out in 2006, and I had already stopped writing by the time I made team leader, but I did keep a blog for some of the time I was in, and I collected it (the interesting stuff) at http://www.servicerecordbook.com http://www.servicerecordbook.com.
blinkingled 16y ago
There's a bit of irony in there that these are mostly people created distractions and the org throws more people at it in the hope of solving it! I think there will still be need for excellent managers to get a diverse group of people to do stuff together, to keep the vision coherent and to motivate people to deliver their best. It's just that it's a lot to ask of one single person and the position is vulnerable to Engineers grasping those skills and having a huge advantage in actually understanding the low level stuff much better.
brown9-2 16y ago
"You can either be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella" - Tood Jackson, Product Manager, Gmail http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/
nickolai 16y ago
> shield the developers from the politics of getting projects approved and other institutional overhead so that we could focus on delivering product. This. This is very true from my perspective. I got a few glimpses of the amount of bull our boss is shielding us from, and boy I don't want her job!
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
tirrellp 16y ago
Did you used to work for me? I ask because when I moved into management and worked with a stellar group of extremely experienced engineers, far better AND more experienced than I ever was, that's exactly how I explained my job to them.

by dman 16y ago

zach 16y ago

This is a great role for a manager to play for as long they have the power to actually shield the developers from politics. When things go bad politically for the manager and they lose that power, the politics have a way of suddenly rushing in and catching the developers off-guard. So developers, inspect your manager for leaks regularly.

joebadmo 16y ago

Sounds familiar. As a USMC fire team leader, my job was mostly to protect my Marines from all the shit that rolls downhill. It's generally a very difficult job to do well, because of the way the explicit incentives are set up, but somewhat easier for me as I was basically apolitical and had no career plans in the Corps.

palish 16y ago
Blog. Please?
- joebadmo 16y ago
  I keep a blog about miscellaneous stuff at http://blog.byjoemoon.com http://blog.byjoemoon.com (plug) but I don't think that's what you mean. I got out in 2006, and I had already stopped writing by the time I made team leader, but I did keep a blog for some of the time I was in, and I collected it (the interesting stuff) at http://www.servicerecordbook.com http://www.servicerecordbook.com.

blinkingled 16y ago

There's a bit of irony in there that these are mostly people created distractions and the org throws more people at it in the hope of solving it! I think there will still be need for excellent managers to get a diverse group of people to do stuff together, to keep the vision coherent and to motivate people to deliver their best. It's just that it's a lot to ask of one single person and the position is vulnerable to Engineers grasping those skills and having a huge advantage in actually understanding the low level stuff much better.

brown9-2 16y ago

"You can either be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella" - Tood Jackson, Product Manager, Gmail http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/key-to-gmail/

nickolai 16y ago

> shield the developers from the politics of getting projects approved and other institutional overhead so that we could focus on delivering product. This. This is very true from my perspective. I got a few glimpses of the amount of bull our boss is shielding us from, and boy I don't want her job!

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

tirrellp 16y ago

Did you used to work for me? I ask because when I moved into management and worked with a stellar group of extremely experienced engineers, far better AND more experienced than I ever was, that's exactly how I explained my job to them.