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Absolutely. The majority of old timers are heroes who don’t need to stay and tend to their understaffed garden. However. There are also old timers who refuse t

by klabb3 4y ago

Absolutely. The majority of old timers are heroes who don’t need to stay and tend to their understaffed garden. However. There are also old timers who refuse to delegate, only ever giving mindless tasks and not training the new folks to be self-sufficient. “They would just screw it up, it’s better if I do just do it, it’s both faster and better.” You could argue that’s a leadership problem as well, of course, but my response would be that if you’re the only one who understands a system, you are a leader, and leaders have a responsibility even if they aren’t managers by title.

scruple 4y ago
> You could argue that’s a leadership problem as well, of course, but my response would be that if you’re the only one who understands a system, you are a leader, and leaders have a responsibility even if they aren’t managers by title. Hear, hear! Anyone who has on-boarded to some legacy system has probably experienced this from one end or the other. The trouble seems to be in getting the heroes, as it were, to recognize that they have a responsibility to properly on-board and train, while simultaneously getting their managers to give them the space to do this work and properly prioritizing it (while also helping to keep the fires at bay... Easily 50% of the on-boarding challenges I have faced in my career were because the person who was responsible for on-boarding me was constantly fire-fighting by themselves).
samatman 4y ago
That's a great argument! The hypothetical person in question gets a leader's salary, title, and responsibility, right? We're not expecting them to hold up the sky for free? [waits for audience laughter]
jterrys 4y ago
>However. There are also old timers who refuse to delegate, only ever giving mindless tasks and not training the new folks to be self-sufficient. “They would just screw it up, it’s better if I do just do it, it’s both faster and better.” Hah, just observed something similar in a different team. They brought a teammate from overseas for training for a month and during that time none of the old timers interacted with this guy at all. Once this teammate returned they were all mumbling how he doesn't know shit. The same old timers are constantly ranting about being the only ones doing weekend maintenance :)
gedy 4y ago
Yes, it’s usually a management issue, because unless that hero person is given a team or put in a team lead type position, it’s frequently impossible to “train others“, especially other devs who are uninterested or have other tasks to do.

by klabb3 4y ago

scruple 4y ago

> You could argue that’s a leadership problem as well, of course, but my response would be that if you’re the only one who understands a system, you are a leader, and leaders have a responsibility even if they aren’t managers by title. Hear, hear! Anyone who has on-boarded to some legacy system has probably experienced this from one end or the other. The trouble seems to be in getting the heroes, as it were, to recognize that they have a responsibility to properly on-board and train, while simultaneously getting their managers to give them the space to do this work and properly prioritizing it (while also helping to keep the fires at bay... Easily 50% of the on-boarding challenges I have faced in my career were because the person who was responsible for on-boarding me was constantly fire-fighting by themselves).

samatman 4y ago

That's a great argument! The hypothetical person in question gets a leader's salary, title, and responsibility, right? We're not expecting them to hold up the sky for free? [waits for audience laughter]

jterrys 4y ago

>However. There are also old timers who refuse to delegate, only ever giving mindless tasks and not training the new folks to be self-sufficient. “They would just screw it up, it’s better if I do just do it, it’s both faster and better.” Hah, just observed something similar in a different team. They brought a teammate from overseas for training for a month and during that time none of the old timers interacted with this guy at all. Once this teammate returned they were all mumbling how he doesn't know shit. The same old timers are constantly ranting about being the only ones doing weekend maintenance :)

gedy 4y ago

Yes, it’s usually a management issue, because unless that hero person is given a team or put in a team lead type position, it’s frequently impossible to “train others“, especially other devs who are uninterested or have other tasks to do.