4 ms·

I don’t really understand the first question, but do you mean that the capacity of an EM to spend time on growing team skills is reduced? There is a limited amo

by ratorx 4y ago

I don’t really understand the first question, but do you mean that the capacity of an EM to spend time on growing team skills is reduced? There is a limited amount of time a manager can spend on that. If it’s a small team, then they could do a good job at it whilst doing small bits on the side. For the 2nd, I imagine that if you are a manager and an IC on the side, then you don’t have the time to spend on big projects. It’s more likely you’ll be filling in gaps or doing the uninteresting but necessary work. There’s nothing stopping you from attempting to hoard the interesting projects, but then your performance on either role or both will likely suffer. That’s not really a new failure mode - any manager can be bad. As a manager + IC, you shouldn’t be leading projects, since that’s a useful skill for your reports to develop. I guess there may be exceptions if your team is particularly junior. Ideally, if you are not micromanaging, you only participate on a big project if required or asked, not because you want to. Your main role is the people management side and to help with planning, prioritisation and communication.

the_af 4y ago
> do you mean that the capacity of an EM to spend time on growing team skills is reduced? There is a limited amount of time a manager can spend on that. If it’s a small team, then they could do a good job at it whilst doing small bits on the side. Yes, that's part of what I mean (but also: dealing with red tape, bureaucracy, and removing impediments) and no, the amount of time that can be used for this is basically unlimited: it's a full time job. "Small bits on the side" is not a good use of a senior IC, that's for the more junior members of the team. Also, playing both roles is less than ideal, see: http://blogs.newardassociates.com/blog/2023/player-coach-fallacy.html http://blogs.newardassociates.com/blog/2023/player-coach-fal... > That’s not really a new failure mode - any manager can be bad. Agreed that any manager can be bad, but I contend that this is a new failure mode driven by two conflicting goals.
- ratorx 4y ago
  I don’t think you treat the team manager as a senior IC. You treat them as a mid-level IC with a part-time job. If you are a manager you can’t also be considered a full-time senior IC (except in very specific cases, which should be transitionary) for the purposes of work allocation, because you can’t dedicate your full time to the job. I don’t think management is unlimited work, at least not always. There are a fixed set of people on the team doing a fixed number of things who can only grow at a fixed rate. I agree that it could be a full time job or more, but I think that depends on the specifics. Obviously managers shouldn’t be forced to be ICs in all situations. If management is taking up all your time, you can retract from the IC pool. However, I think it’s valuable to consider and push for organisational changes to allow yourself to enter the IC pool again (maybe handing off some responsibilities to a new team etc.). > failure mode driven by two conflicting goals Again, I think this strongly depends on how you allocate yourself. There is room for a pre-emptible IC, that is not always available. However, it’s situation dependent whether this is useful or not. The conflicting goals theory only applies if you try and optimise for both. Your IC performance can suffer, whilst still being a net positive, again depending on the specific situation. That’s kinda upto you as a manager to quantify though. The article is more good advice on how not to approach this dual situation. If you know how to prioritise being a manager though, the points don’t apply. On the flip side, sometimes your management performance HAS to suffer to meet critical deadlines because the entirety of the normal IC pool has other critical deadlines. It’s also upto you to avoid these situations, and if they happen then strongly push back on your leadership to prevent them happening again. Your primary goal as a manager is to ensure team productivity and deadlines. If you can’t recognise that you are a detriment and step back (or at the very least step back when you get feedback from others who do), then that suggests that other aspects of your management are lacking as well, so it seems like the same failure mode. The benefit to keeping yourself in the IC pool is that you can keep your skills at least slightly fresh. Even if you are no longer a full senior IC, not having any technical skills means an inability to make technical judgements if required.
  - the_af 4y ago
    Thank you for your reply. All I can say is that in my experience I've only witnessed (and on occasions been, sadly) the dysfunctional kind of EM+IC. I've never witnessed it working well, which is what I'm basing my objections on. The best managers I had were full-time managers (with an engineering background, which meant they understood the technical constraints); the worst managers I've had were either 100% non-technical, or EM+IC roles which just couldn't keep their paws away from coding. My 2 cents, anyway.
    - ratorx 4y ago
      Yeah, there’s definitely room for error. I just don’t think the idea should be discounted in all situations :)

by ratorx 4y ago

the_af 4y ago

> do you mean that the capacity of an EM to spend time on growing team skills is reduced? There is a limited amount of time a manager can spend on that. If it’s a small team, then they could do a good job at it whilst doing small bits on the side. Yes, that's part of what I mean (but also: dealing with red tape, bureaucracy, and removing impediments) and no, the amount of time that can be used for this is basically unlimited: it's a full time job. "Small bits on the side" is not a good use of a senior IC, that's for the more junior members of the team. Also, playing both roles is less than ideal, see: http://blogs.newardassociates.com/blog/2023/player-coach-fallacy.html http://blogs.newardassociates.com/blog/2023/player-coach-fal... > That’s not really a new failure mode - any manager can be bad. Agreed that any manager can be bad, but I contend that this is a new failure mode driven by two conflicting goals.

ratorx 4y ago
I don’t think you treat the team manager as a senior IC. You treat them as a mid-level IC with a part-time job. If you are a manager you can’t also be considered a full-time senior IC (except in very specific cases, which should be transitionary) for the purposes of work allocation, because you can’t dedicate your full time to the job. I don’t think management is unlimited work, at least not always. There are a fixed set of people on the team doing a fixed number of things who can only grow at a fixed rate. I agree that it could be a full time job or more, but I think that depends on the specifics. Obviously managers shouldn’t be forced to be ICs in all situations. If management is taking up all your time, you can retract from the IC pool. However, I think it’s valuable to consider and push for organisational changes to allow yourself to enter the IC pool again (maybe handing off some responsibilities to a new team etc.). > failure mode driven by two conflicting goals Again, I think this strongly depends on how you allocate yourself. There is room for a pre-emptible IC, that is not always available. However, it’s situation dependent whether this is useful or not. The conflicting goals theory only applies if you try and optimise for both. Your IC performance can suffer, whilst still being a net positive, again depending on the specific situation. That’s kinda upto you as a manager to quantify though. The article is more good advice on how not to approach this dual situation. If you know how to prioritise being a manager though, the points don’t apply. On the flip side, sometimes your management performance HAS to suffer to meet critical deadlines because the entirety of the normal IC pool has other critical deadlines. It’s also upto you to avoid these situations, and if they happen then strongly push back on your leadership to prevent them happening again. Your primary goal as a manager is to ensure team productivity and deadlines. If you can’t recognise that you are a detriment and step back (or at the very least step back when you get feedback from others who do), then that suggests that other aspects of your management are lacking as well, so it seems like the same failure mode. The benefit to keeping yourself in the IC pool is that you can keep your skills at least slightly fresh. Even if you are no longer a full senior IC, not having any technical skills means an inability to make technical judgements if required.
- the_af 4y ago
  Thank you for your reply. All I can say is that in my experience I've only witnessed (and on occasions been, sadly) the dysfunctional kind of EM+IC. I've never witnessed it working well, which is what I'm basing my objections on. The best managers I had were full-time managers (with an engineering background, which meant they understood the technical constraints); the worst managers I've had were either 100% non-technical, or EM+IC roles which just couldn't keep their paws away from coding. My 2 cents, anyway.
  - ratorx 4y ago
    Yeah, there’s definitely room for error. I just don’t think the idea should be discounted in all situations :)