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In my essay "The worst project manager ever" I talk about some of these same flaws, but I also talk about the best project manager that I ever worked with, Soni

In my essay "The worst project manager ever" I talk about some of these same flaws, but I also talk about the best project manager that I ever worked with, Sonia Bramwell, and I recount some of the lessons she taught me about great project management: http://www.smashcompany.com/business/the-worst-project-manager-ever http://www.smashcompany.com/business/the-worst-project-manag... About this: >There is back-and-forth as the estimates are questioned for being too high, almost never for being too low. Sonia did not allow us (the engineers) to talk to upper management, so she handled the translation herself. In some cases she was worried about macho engineers who competed on how fast they could do something: "I can do that in a day" "Oh yeah? Well, I can do that in 4 hours!" "Ha! You two suck! I can do it in 2 hours!" Perhaps Sonia's greatest ability was to figure out exactly how much each engineer tended to overestimate or underestimate tasks, and then to weight their answers accordingly. For the upper leadership, she was the only one who continuously offered accurate estimates of how long big new features would take.

tikhonj 5y ago
> Sonia did not allow us (the engineers) to talk to upper management, so she handled the translation herself. In some cases she was worried about macho engineers who competed on how fast they could do something: That strikes me as incredibly condescending. Normal estimates and processes already do quite a bit to erode developer agency, and seems like this attitude just doubles down on that dynamic.
- throwanem 5y ago
  It would have sounded that way to me, too, a decade or so ago. I've learned a lot since then about the internal politics of organizations, and these days for most purposes I'm quite happy to leave them in the hands of a skilled specialist when available.
- Karawebnetwork 5y ago
  From that very same article: "There are moments when it is useful to have the engineers (or any kind of staff with specific skills) talk to upper management and talk to outside clients. But those discussions need to go through a specific process, they can not be allowed to happen randomly."
- Oddskar 5y ago
  She was right about “macho engineers” in my opinion. They can be extremely disruptive for both a team and an org.

tikhonj 5y ago

> Sonia did not allow us (the engineers) to talk to upper management, so she handled the translation herself. In some cases she was worried about macho engineers who competed on how fast they could do something: That strikes me as incredibly condescending. Normal estimates and processes already do quite a bit to erode developer agency, and seems like this attitude just doubles down on that dynamic.

throwanem 5y ago
It would have sounded that way to me, too, a decade or so ago. I've learned a lot since then about the internal politics of organizations, and these days for most purposes I'm quite happy to leave them in the hands of a skilled specialist when available.
Karawebnetwork 5y ago
From that very same article: "There are moments when it is useful to have the engineers (or any kind of staff with specific skills) talk to upper management and talk to outside clients. But those discussions need to go through a specific process, they can not be allowed to happen randomly."
Oddskar 5y ago
She was right about “macho engineers” in my opinion. They can be extremely disruptive for both a team and an org.