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What Jason Fried is expressing is something I've been pondering for a while. And I think we'll (hopefully) see more of it (sorry, manager-types). In my experie

by tomlin 16y ago

What Jason Fried is expressing is something I've been pondering for a while. And I think we'll (hopefully) see more of it (sorry, manager-types). In my experience, managers in most departments have essentially taken the role of sheep-herders. So, I started to ask myself: why do I need a manager when I work well on my own, making smart, educated decisions that are based upon the ideals and successes of other smart, educated and passionate people? After all, I'm being hired for my prowess, no? If I am, do I need a manager? And shouldn't you always hire people who have these sensibilities? I think the message I find within this rubble of contemporary and progressive ideologies is: Hire smart. If you have a good team who understand their roles and how it pertains to the goals of the company, you don't need managers - not for a small or mid-sized company, anyway. Basecamp has been the best PM I've ever worked with - alive or binary. Software has already begun to facilitate the role perfectly for me.

dailyrorschach 16y ago
Though I am a dreaded project manager, I agree mostly to what you are saying. But in the field I work in, advertising, I do think that its necessary and that my value is additive. My responsibility is mainly to be a shit umbrella, so my creative and developers can do work, especially when we're all working on multiple clients. I'm not doing my job when I have to have them in meetings, in fact we don't meet save for face-to-face discussions. That and of course dealing with the rowdiness of clients, hammering out scope, keeping things to scope, and being the bad guy when necessary with the client. (This is actually harder then people realize, our default human reaction is to help people, and it requires taking abuse in the extremes that is simply part of your job) This article sums up my views nicely: http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/10/project_managers_not_calendar.php http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/10/project_managers_not_ca...
- tomlin 16y ago
  I would say in high-output environments that a PM is a good thing, if the PM in question is good at being a PM. I've met a few, but many more terrible PMs unfortunately. Oftentimes PMs (or better, their organization culture + workflow) have thrown a wrench or 2 into production and caused cascading failures because they forgot a detail, or couldn't admit to fault. The culture is surely to blame amidst most of these catastrophes. The fact that you can admit that your PM skills need work already makes you a frontrunner for being a much better PM than most.
  - dailyrorschach 16y ago
    The central problem I see is most PMs don't want to be PMs, and are tricked into being hired as account people. I like what I do, and my team knows I have their back, we do quite well together.
- tomkr 16y ago
  I like the shit umbrella metaphor. I have recently taken up some PM-type work, even though I am technically an engineer, and a junior one at that. Now it is mostly cleaning up some stuff and keeping other engineers out of the wind. Things like making overviews of calls in a certain time-period, and making sure contracts are set-up. Stuff that most developers could not be bothered with, but I enjoy it. So for me doing PM work is actually more of a horizontal promotion, doing some different work because I like it, while I am definitely not "in charge" of any people now. I guess my point is that even picking up PM work can be a horizontal promotion.
- vacri 16y ago
  At my previous work, the head of R&D was an awful manager that couldn't light a fire under foot-dragging devs or keep things from going off-track (and software was routinely released in beta years late). But he had an amazing talent to shield his devs from the godawful CEO and other pointless distractions. This is a much unseen function of managers - shielding you from paperwork and interruptions that really aren't directly related to your job.
prodigal_erik 16y ago
How much time can you spare learning exactly what each of those other people are doing and how it might affect your work? For that matter, how much time can those other people spare to explain yet again exactly what they're doing, in enough detail for you to realize how it affects your work? As I see it, much of management's job is to protect me from investing most of my time in conversations which didn't need to happen because they won't pay off.
MatthewPhillips 16y ago
Managers can be useful to say "no" to business. Otherwise you have business asking for a new feature every other day. Even if the engineer says no, it's still an unnecessary distraction and time killer to listen to everyone's proposals.
- tomlin 16y ago
  This is a good point to bring up. I agree in theory that managers are useful in gate-keeping roles. The trouble is that very few managers actually possess the power to be gate-keepers. Investors, clients threatening to leave and other fast-paced blame-culture mentality all but strips away their usefulness. In my experience, this at times makes managers feel worthless, expire, or worse - erratic. My take is, manager positions are ripe for buck passing (to and from), collateral pressure for performance and abuse. Maybe some people can deal with that type of nonsense but the number of those who can't certainly outweigh them. I can see how a manager might feel by this message. My thoughts are: If you're providing a great service to your underlings and your clients than you're in no position of regret. Contrarily, if you feel sick to your stomach when you go to work everyday and you're proud of that to a point of defense or fear, maybe it's time to reevaluate.

by tomlin 16y ago

dailyrorschach 16y ago

Though I am a dreaded project manager, I agree mostly to what you are saying. But in the field I work in, advertising, I do think that its necessary and that my value is additive. My responsibility is mainly to be a shit umbrella, so my creative and developers can do work, especially when we're all working on multiple clients. I'm not doing my job when I have to have them in meetings, in fact we don't meet save for face-to-face discussions. That and of course dealing with the rowdiness of clients, hammering out scope, keeping things to scope, and being the bad guy when necessary with the client. (This is actually harder then people realize, our default human reaction is to help people, and it requires taking abuse in the extremes that is simply part of your job) This article sums up my views nicely: http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/10/project_managers_not_calendar.php http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/10/project_managers_not_ca...

tomlin 16y ago
I would say in high-output environments that a PM is a good thing, if the PM in question is good at being a PM. I've met a few, but many more terrible PMs unfortunately. Oftentimes PMs (or better, their organization culture + workflow) have thrown a wrench or 2 into production and caused cascading failures because they forgot a detail, or couldn't admit to fault. The culture is surely to blame amidst most of these catastrophes. The fact that you can admit that your PM skills need work already makes you a frontrunner for being a much better PM than most.
- dailyrorschach 16y ago
  The central problem I see is most PMs don't want to be PMs, and are tricked into being hired as account people. I like what I do, and my team knows I have their back, we do quite well together.
tomkr 16y ago
I like the shit umbrella metaphor. I have recently taken up some PM-type work, even though I am technically an engineer, and a junior one at that. Now it is mostly cleaning up some stuff and keeping other engineers out of the wind. Things like making overviews of calls in a certain time-period, and making sure contracts are set-up. Stuff that most developers could not be bothered with, but I enjoy it. So for me doing PM work is actually more of a horizontal promotion, doing some different work because I like it, while I am definitely not "in charge" of any people now. I guess my point is that even picking up PM work can be a horizontal promotion.
vacri 16y ago
At my previous work, the head of R&D was an awful manager that couldn't light a fire under foot-dragging devs or keep things from going off-track (and software was routinely released in beta years late). But he had an amazing talent to shield his devs from the godawful CEO and other pointless distractions. This is a much unseen function of managers - shielding you from paperwork and interruptions that really aren't directly related to your job.

prodigal_erik 16y ago

How much time can you spare learning exactly what each of those other people are doing and how it might affect your work? For that matter, how much time can those other people spare to explain yet again exactly what they're doing, in enough detail for you to realize how it affects your work? As I see it, much of management's job is to protect me from investing most of my time in conversations which didn't need to happen because they won't pay off.

MatthewPhillips 16y ago

Managers can be useful to say "no" to business. Otherwise you have business asking for a new feature every other day. Even if the engineer says no, it's still an unnecessary distraction and time killer to listen to everyone's proposals.

tomlin 16y ago
This is a good point to bring up. I agree in theory that managers are useful in gate-keeping roles. The trouble is that very few managers actually possess the power to be gate-keepers. Investors, clients threatening to leave and other fast-paced blame-culture mentality all but strips away their usefulness. In my experience, this at times makes managers feel worthless, expire, or worse - erratic. My take is, manager positions are ripe for buck passing (to and from), collateral pressure for performance and abuse. Maybe some people can deal with that type of nonsense but the number of those who can't certainly outweigh them. I can see how a manager might feel by this message. My thoughts are: If you're providing a great service to your underlings and your clients than you're in no position of regret. Contrarily, if you feel sick to your stomach when you go to work everyday and you're proud of that to a point of defense or fear, maybe it's time to reevaluate.