4 ms·

So, a lot of talking and meeting. No doing. Color me unsurprised. A good manager leads the team, finagles resources from upper tiers, un-sticks stuck processes

by caeril 5y ago

So, a lot of talking and meeting. No doing. Color me unsurprised. A good manager leads the team, finagles resources from upper tiers, un-sticks stuck processes, settles disputes, and then gets the hell out of the way. This manager sucks.

ketzo 5y ago
I mean... how would you do those things without talking and meeting? Like, I get what you're saying, but I think it might be a little unproductive to consider all communication work as "not doing."
- caeril 5y ago
  Let me be a little more specific, with one pretty obvious red flag. I see a lot of 1-on-1s, which is fine, but: 1. 30 minutes for a weekly 1 on 1 is pretty long, almost certainly a waste of time. 2. There's nothing after these 1 on 1s along the lines of "Planning time block for resources requested by Team Member B and E" or "Escalation call with Director B to handle sticking point M" or "Handling requirements conflict with product manager C over feature Q" There are plenty of other issues here, but this is one clear issue. It sounds like this guy is is a highly paid sounding board. There's nothing in this schedule to suggest he's actually acting on information communicated during any of these meetings.
  - jms703 5y ago
    This! ^ If you’re getting tons of info from these meetings, but have no time to do anything to solve or correct those problems/issues, then you’ve created a false expectation and will let down your employees. I prefer the open door policy, ping me when you want to chat.
    - tomnipotent 5y ago
      > ping me when you want to chat Many people feel uncomfortable "bugging" higher-ups and "wasting your time" when you have "some many other things to worry about". I've discovered that most people will not initiate, and I need to be the one to reach out and make things happen. Some of my biggest career snafu's could have been avoided if I just hadn't been so insistent on figuring it out on my own (or letting others do the same).
  - awsthro00945 5y ago
    >30 minutes for a weekly 1 on 1 is pretty long, almost certainly a waste of time. 30 minutes for a weekly 1 on 1 is borderline too short, IMO. It depends on the person, but 1on1s are by far the most valuable and productive meetings that I have, and they often stretch longer than 30 minutes if possible. >There's nothing after these 1 on 1s along the lines of "Planning time block for resources requested by Team Member B and E" or "Escalation call with Director B to handle sticking point M" or "Handling requirements conflict with product manager C over feature Q" I count several meetings on their calendar that seem like exactly these things. Some of these things might even be covered during the 1 on 1s which you think are a waste of time. >It sounds like this guy is is a highly paid sounding board. Sounding boards are incredibly valuable and useful. We have people at my company that are literally just 40-hour-a-week sounding boards that probably haven't actually "done anything" in years, and they are some of the most critical people in the entire company.
- SkyPuncher 5y ago
  Better processes and empowering your team. If I'm in meeting that my report could have led/attended instead, that's a failure on my part.
  - ketzo 5y ago
    What is a manager for if not to "front line" for their team and take the role of representing the team in meetings, then filtering and distilling that information down into action items? (I'm conflating a little with PM/PO roles, but not much.) Obviously, discussions around technical decisions are something that engineer input should be required for. But I would argue that many, if not most, meetings that require "your team's" attendance are the ones that the manager should be fielding. For one, a manager should have the broader context and relationships to better understand the information being presented/decisions being made in the meeting. For two, time spent in that meeting is engineer time not spent doing the hands-on-keyboard work of software engineering. If the meeting is for updating teams/disseminating information/resource planning/strategic planning, that is the purview of an engineering manager, and a bit of a waste of time for engineers to be doing/leading. All of this is written very declaratively, but this is all, of course, my personal opinion; haven't been in software very long, so these are just my current thoughts.
    - SkyPuncher 5y ago
      At risk of sounding brash, you have a very traditional (old school) mentality on what management is. The teams currently seeing the best results are the ones embedding their engineers in the discovery process so they can deeply understand the customer's problems and drive appropriate solutions. It's a bit "less efficient" upfront, but pays dividends during delivery when they can more appropriately model their code and make meaningful decisions without always relying on an outside party. My role as a manager isn't telling my team how to solve problems. It's helping them identify the most meaningful problems and guiding them towards solutions against those problems. Over time this means that I actually spend less and less time "managing" them and more time listening.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Look at the complete schedule for the week. Almost their entire working hours are totally packed with meetings. Discussions and stand ups and status updates and briefings. Let's assume all those meetings are productive and necessary and the results could not be achieved in much less time with emails or slack or fewer/shorter meetings. Then he is not putting enough time into each meeting. He has almost no time to prepare, to think about things, to go away and investigate issues with technology more deeply, to make plans, etc. It's just meeting after meeting and thinking by the seat of his pants. If he is not in a position to seriously participate to the point of making productive input, and asking serious questions or making important decisions in meetings (which he clearly is not given the amount of time he can possibly put into them), then he does not need to be in them. He can skim through minutes to stay generally up to date about those things if he needs/wants.

by caeril 5y ago

ketzo 5y ago

I mean... how would you do those things without talking and meeting? Like, I get what you're saying, but I think it might be a little unproductive to consider all communication work as "not doing."

caeril 5y ago
Let me be a little more specific, with one pretty obvious red flag. I see a lot of 1-on-1s, which is fine, but: 1. 30 minutes for a weekly 1 on 1 is pretty long, almost certainly a waste of time. 2. There's nothing after these 1 on 1s along the lines of "Planning time block for resources requested by Team Member B and E" or "Escalation call with Director B to handle sticking point M" or "Handling requirements conflict with product manager C over feature Q" There are plenty of other issues here, but this is one clear issue. It sounds like this guy is is a highly paid sounding board. There's nothing in this schedule to suggest he's actually acting on information communicated during any of these meetings.
- jms703 5y ago
  This! ^ If you’re getting tons of info from these meetings, but have no time to do anything to solve or correct those problems/issues, then you’ve created a false expectation and will let down your employees. I prefer the open door policy, ping me when you want to chat.
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    > ping me when you want to chat Many people feel uncomfortable "bugging" higher-ups and "wasting your time" when you have "some many other things to worry about". I've discovered that most people will not initiate, and I need to be the one to reach out and make things happen. Some of my biggest career snafu's could have been avoided if I just hadn't been so insistent on figuring it out on my own (or letting others do the same).
- awsthro00945 5y ago
  >30 minutes for a weekly 1 on 1 is pretty long, almost certainly a waste of time. 30 minutes for a weekly 1 on 1 is borderline too short, IMO. It depends on the person, but 1on1s are by far the most valuable and productive meetings that I have, and they often stretch longer than 30 minutes if possible. >There's nothing after these 1 on 1s along the lines of "Planning time block for resources requested by Team Member B and E" or "Escalation call with Director B to handle sticking point M" or "Handling requirements conflict with product manager C over feature Q" I count several meetings on their calendar that seem like exactly these things. Some of these things might even be covered during the 1 on 1s which you think are a waste of time. >It sounds like this guy is is a highly paid sounding board. Sounding boards are incredibly valuable and useful. We have people at my company that are literally just 40-hour-a-week sounding boards that probably haven't actually "done anything" in years, and they are some of the most critical people in the entire company.
SkyPuncher 5y ago
Better processes and empowering your team. If I'm in meeting that my report could have led/attended instead, that's a failure on my part.
- ketzo 5y ago
  What is a manager for if not to "front line" for their team and take the role of representing the team in meetings, then filtering and distilling that information down into action items? (I'm conflating a little with PM/PO roles, but not much.) Obviously, discussions around technical decisions are something that engineer input should be required for. But I would argue that many, if not most, meetings that require "your team's" attendance are the ones that the manager should be fielding. For one, a manager should have the broader context and relationships to better understand the information being presented/decisions being made in the meeting. For two, time spent in that meeting is engineer time not spent doing the hands-on-keyboard work of software engineering. If the meeting is for updating teams/disseminating information/resource planning/strategic planning, that is the purview of an engineering manager, and a bit of a waste of time for engineers to be doing/leading. All of this is written very declaratively, but this is all, of course, my personal opinion; haven't been in software very long, so these are just my current thoughts.
  - SkyPuncher 5y ago
    At risk of sounding brash, you have a very traditional (old school) mentality on what management is. The teams currently seeing the best results are the ones embedding their engineers in the discovery process so they can deeply understand the customer's problems and drive appropriate solutions. It's a bit "less efficient" upfront, but pays dividends during delivery when they can more appropriately model their code and make meaningful decisions without always relying on an outside party. My role as a manager isn't telling my team how to solve problems. It's helping them identify the most meaningful problems and guiding them towards solutions against those problems. Over time this means that I actually spend less and less time "managing" them and more time listening.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
Look at the complete schedule for the week. Almost their entire working hours are totally packed with meetings. Discussions and stand ups and status updates and briefings. Let's assume all those meetings are productive and necessary and the results could not be achieved in much less time with emails or slack or fewer/shorter meetings. Then he is not putting enough time into each meeting. He has almost no time to prepare, to think about things, to go away and investigate issues with technology more deeply, to make plans, etc. It's just meeting after meeting and thinking by the seat of his pants. If he is not in a position to seriously participate to the point of making productive input, and asking serious questions or making important decisions in meetings (which he clearly is not given the amount of time he can possibly put into them), then he does not need to be in them. He can skim through minutes to stay generally up to date about those things if he needs/wants.