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While I agree that managing is a different skill set (have switched between the roles several times in my career) the problem with focusing on "it is a differen

While I agree that managing is a different skill set (have switched between the roles several times in my career) the problem with focusing on "it is a different skill set" is that it allows mediocre managers to get in who have neither a clue about the product nor about real life software processes but e.g. are great "agile master"s or have a sales background. A lot also depends on the nature of the project - some are more tangible and some other are very technical. We need people who know where we want to end up, can recognize problems, understand dependencies, can remove hurdles, can provide resources, can communicate, make sound and stable decisions, motivate and plan. Some of these skills are mandatory in a developer but there are quite a number of managers who have a surprising lack of ability to recognize dependencies, mentally juggle dependencies, plan and making stable decisions. And when they are coming from a pure "agile master" factory they may even not be able to communicate and focus on a product goal. > You are a team, so work together. I agree but there are cases where managers are such a bad fit that exchanging them is the only option. Two days ago I put out feelers to see whether others thought our project manager was in over his head and we needed to escalate it. Working as a team together was not really an option as we as a team would have to do all the managers work, deal with the overhead he was creating and still had key questions undecided. Yesterday I learned the manager is quitting which is good for everyone, clearly he was not comfortable in his role and had looked for alternatives. And no, there was no animosity from the team and he had a lot of help when he started. A nice guy but not a fit.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
This is a great comment, and it helps reveal to us why there are approximately zero good managers. Imagine a job advertisement: Position available for (Software Development, but any industry really) Project Manager. Hard requirements: • Take ownership • Delegate • Know where we want to end up • Recognise problems • Understand dependencies • Remove hurdles • Provide resources by identify bottlenecks and resource constraints and remove them • Be able to communicate to the team collectively and each member individually to a high level • Make sound and stable decisions • Motivate the team • Do all of these things well above average level • Not just this project and this team, but also the next project and when the team gets shuffled around from time to time There are approximately zero people who can do all of this on a consistent basis. Maybe one in a million can do some of it well some of the time, perhaps. Maybe. If you have a manager who is simply a reasonable sort of person, though they may be lacking everything else, I strongly urge you to do everything you can to keep that person where they are. If you don't mind tolerating them, you're on to good thing, because there's a fair chance ousting them will result in your team finding the next person is much much worse.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago

This is a great comment, and it helps reveal to us why there are approximately zero good managers. Imagine a job advertisement: Position available for (Software Development, but any industry really) Project Manager. Hard requirements: • Take ownership • Delegate • Know where we want to end up • Recognise problems • Understand dependencies • Remove hurdles • Provide resources by identify bottlenecks and resource constraints and remove them • Be able to communicate to the team collectively and each member individually to a high level • Make sound and stable decisions • Motivate the team • Do all of these things well above average level • Not just this project and this team, but also the next project and when the team gets shuffled around from time to time There are approximately zero people who can do all of this on a consistent basis. Maybe one in a million can do some of it well some of the time, perhaps. Maybe. If you have a manager who is simply a reasonable sort of person, though they may be lacking everything else, I strongly urge you to do everything you can to keep that person where they are. If you don't mind tolerating them, you're on to good thing, because there's a fair chance ousting them will result in your team finding the next person is much much worse.