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I clicked through to the linked McKinsey article [1] to see what all the hubbub was about, and I found this gem: > For example, one company found that its most

I clicked through to the linked McKinsey article [1] to see what all the hubbub was about, and I found this gem: > For example, one company found that its most talented developers were spending excessive time on noncoding activities such as design sessions or managing interdependencies across teams. In response, the company changed its operating model and clarified roles and responsibilities to enable those highest-value developers to do what they do best: code. The rest of the article is equally hare-brained. It's a sort of clueless management-consultant thinking that believes software engineers should be furiously typing all the time, and it entirely fails to understand that actual software engineering is about solving business problems. Stuff like this really makes me wish I'd optimized for $$$ earlier in my career, and I only hope I can retire before this kind of absurd thinking spreads into real technology companies. [1]: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/yes-you-can-measure-software-developer-productivity https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-tel... EDIT: Changed "MBA thinking" to "management-consultant thinking," in response to fair feedback below.

ryandrake 3y ago
> It's a sort of clueless MBA thinking that believes software engineers should be furiously typing all the time (Your point is good, but the dig against MBAs is unnecessary and I wish it was less acceptable here on HN. It wouldn't be ok to make fun of people with Sociology degrees or History degrees here, but jokes about MBAs get a pass. We really should be better than that, but I realize I'm swimming against the current on this one.) That aside, I have found a lot of clueless folks in tech leadership have that "furiously typing" misconception, as if developers are only productive when their fingertips are pounding keys. I once worked with a CEO who refused to set aside time in the schedule for things like setting up source control and a bug tracker, because he believed that developers should be furiously typing code in at all times.
- eynsham 3y ago
  History and sociology are respectable academic disciplines.
  - passion__desire 3y ago
    My respect in fields is directly proportional to relevant maths used.
    - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
      How do physics and math stack against each other?
      - passion__desire 3y ago
        Lately physics has been providing seed ideas for mathematicians to explore them rigorously. e.g. mirror symmetry and amplituhedron.
- turndown 3y ago
  If sociology or history degrees doled out management positions the way MBAs somehow do I guarantee you they would be met with derision. It’s like making fun of politicians, it happens because they are often inappropriately given power.
- version_five 3y ago
  What is the problem with criticism "mba thinking"? It's a legit complaint against the kind of naive "efficiency" analyses and measures that happen, and is completely justified. I have an MBA, I certainly don't find it offensive, I think the criticism is apt. The usual art student tropes are more offensive because they are about people in a chosen degree being dumb (incidentally, when I did engineering all the hardcore "haha artsies are so dumb" engineers failed out after first year). That's not the same as criticizing a specific flaw in their education. If there's some big blind spot the average sociology degree leaves, that should be fair game.
  - BWStearns 3y ago
    MBA programs have (generally) moved past Taylorism. Apparently McKinsey not so much.
  - marcus_holmes 3y ago
    I'm a software dev with an MBA, and yes, my classmates were very much "our job as managers is to make the minions work harder" [0] so I'm equally OK with the MBA slur. I struggle trying to educate people that the best way of measuring developer productivity is measuring outcomes, and that a developer going for a walk in the park is a great thing for them to do. [0] In Australia, where management is generally still locked into 1950's-style authoritarianism. YMMV.
    - whoopsie 3y ago
      It’s such a hilarious misdirection, that mentality. Finding ways for every employee to work less is the definition of efficiency and profit.
- heyoni 3y ago
  How is that being better? There’s a pattern of management coming out of business schools that’s clearly not working because at the end of the day, you have managers trying to micro not macro manage highly skilled workers working in areas they don’t understand well. The result is hilarious. We’re supposed to suppress that? To be better? Is laughing bad now?
- plasma_beam 3y ago
  I’ll join the current with you. I have an MBA. I write code. It’s an unfair trope. I understand the stereotype I guess I just haven’t experienced it so yeah..but I understand the vitriol against McKinsey in particular.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
  > the dig against MBAs is unnecessary You're right. Ironically, I've seriously considered getting an MBA myself. I changed it to "management-consultant thinking," which feels much more fair, given we are ripping on a McKinsey article in the first place. :) Thanks for the note.
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  Seems like criticism to "clueless MBA thinking" in the software engineering context. 99% of MBA's are certainly clueless about SWE because they never did SWE professionally. It didn't seem to me like a criticism of MBA's fundamentally speaking.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > 99% of MBA's are certainly clueless about SWE because they never did SWE professionally Anecdotally, most of the MBAs I know are former coders. The last decade of Silicon Valley thinking it can reinvent commerce from first principles has massively increased the value and leverage of former coders with MBAs.
    - guiambros 3y ago
      Anecdotally, I worked with several brilliant engineers who have MBAs. Folks who are extremely technical and can go deep in their fields of expertise, yet they see the bigger picture in terms of business outcomes, and have tools in their toolbox to navigate ambiguity, mitigate escalating complexity, influence senior stakeholders (technical or not), etc. Of course an MBA is not the only way of acquiring those skills, but it is certainly an effective way. It can be incredibly powerful to someone with already strong technical skills. So I'd agree with OP that this trope is unwarranted and out of touch with reality. edit: I like OP's edit, replacing "MBA" with "management-consulting thinking". Lots of old school consulting companies come up with recommendations for areas that they have no domain expertise. While it may look good on paper, it's a recipe for disaster, like the original article describes.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  I'd agree with that. I mean (usually?) most people are referring to the person straight from high school to college to MBA to management/executive/consultant without having worked a day in their life, but still. Does grate on me, though I might be biased, having worked 20 years in IT progressing upwards, and now looking at an MBA to round out my formal business education for further advancement.
jowea 3y ago
I wonder if McKinsey just skipped over the part where they hired/assigned specific people for design, inter-team coordination and code monkeying or if they actually decided that "design sessions or managing interdependencies across teams" should not be done. And maybe the corporate $$$ optimization means real technology company will avoid this.
neilv 3y ago
Charitably, I guess they might've meant something different with that quote (say, they were referring to people who were only good at coding, and the roles for design and cross-team coordination were covered better by different people). But they keep coming across poorly on that metrics project. I'm imagining their clients optimizing their operations, by bringing in management consultants, to tell them that the earlier management consultants need to be enabled to do what they do best: stay the heck away from sabotaging software development organizations.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ip26 3y ago
entirely fails to understand that actual software engineering is about solving business problems The irredeemable cynic might wonder if this is because they see themselves as the only ones who should be solving business problems.
- mattbuilds 3y ago
  Which is funny, because they aren’t very good at it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
infecto 3y ago
Relatedly I have always pondered the value of most consultancy work from the big firms. Maybe this is an unfair attack but it always felt like lots of PowerPoints and not much substance. I can see bringing a consultant in that specializes in maybe a specific manufacturing process or some other type of physical process but have always had trouble seeing the value in the other type of process change consultancy.
- sjjshd2283 3y ago
  [dead]
paulcole 3y ago
> it entirely fails to understand that actual software engineering is about solving business problems So do most HN discussions about this. Look at how many people will say, “I’d rather be coding than in this meeting…”
Ntrails 3y ago
> In response, the company changed its operating model and clarified roles and responsibilities to enable those highest-value developers to do what they do best: code. Interestingly this is my distaste when I read pro remote-work posts about undisturbed focused time to do "the work". I'm not saying it is intended or correct, but it is the implication I take from it, and I feel it undersells what engineers do
- tomohawk 3y ago
  There is a time and a place for every purpose. Unfortunately, on site work conditions usually add a lot of friction to getting focused work done. Being potentially more optimal for collaboration work does not make up for this. So, yes, you may hear about the sudden ability of people to get work done at a level they could not do when on site, and so they are happy about this aspect of remote. It's been a couple of years since we went remote with our teams, and it has been a very positive experience for both collaboration and focus. We found that collaboration worked a lot better when it was actually intentional. It made the result of the collaboration more high value and strategic. If you are depending on people accidentally bumping into one another for collaboration to occur, then you are being very poorly led.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

ryandrake 3y ago

> It's a sort of clueless MBA thinking that believes software engineers should be furiously typing all the time (Your point is good, but the dig against MBAs is unnecessary and I wish it was less acceptable here on HN. It wouldn't be ok to make fun of people with Sociology degrees or History degrees here, but jokes about MBAs get a pass. We really should be better than that, but I realize I'm swimming against the current on this one.) That aside, I have found a lot of clueless folks in tech leadership have that "furiously typing" misconception, as if developers are only productive when their fingertips are pounding keys. I once worked with a CEO who refused to set aside time in the schedule for things like setting up source control and a bug tracker, because he believed that developers should be furiously typing code in at all times.

eynsham 3y ago
History and sociology are respectable academic disciplines.
- passion__desire 3y ago
  My respect in fields is directly proportional to relevant maths used.
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    How do physics and math stack against each other?
    - passion__desire 3y ago
      Lately physics has been providing seed ideas for mathematicians to explore them rigorously. e.g. mirror symmetry and amplituhedron.
turndown 3y ago
If sociology or history degrees doled out management positions the way MBAs somehow do I guarantee you they would be met with derision. It’s like making fun of politicians, it happens because they are often inappropriately given power.
version_five 3y ago
What is the problem with criticism "mba thinking"? It's a legit complaint against the kind of naive "efficiency" analyses and measures that happen, and is completely justified. I have an MBA, I certainly don't find it offensive, I think the criticism is apt. The usual art student tropes are more offensive because they are about people in a chosen degree being dumb (incidentally, when I did engineering all the hardcore "haha artsies are so dumb" engineers failed out after first year). That's not the same as criticizing a specific flaw in their education. If there's some big blind spot the average sociology degree leaves, that should be fair game.
- BWStearns 3y ago
  MBA programs have (generally) moved past Taylorism. Apparently McKinsey not so much.
- marcus_holmes 3y ago
  I'm a software dev with an MBA, and yes, my classmates were very much "our job as managers is to make the minions work harder" [0] so I'm equally OK with the MBA slur. I struggle trying to educate people that the best way of measuring developer productivity is measuring outcomes, and that a developer going for a walk in the park is a great thing for them to do. [0] In Australia, where management is generally still locked into 1950's-style authoritarianism. YMMV.
  - whoopsie 3y ago
    It’s such a hilarious misdirection, that mentality. Finding ways for every employee to work less is the definition of efficiency and profit.
heyoni 3y ago
How is that being better? There’s a pattern of management coming out of business schools that’s clearly not working because at the end of the day, you have managers trying to micro not macro manage highly skilled workers working in areas they don’t understand well. The result is hilarious. We’re supposed to suppress that? To be better? Is laughing bad now?
plasma_beam 3y ago
I’ll join the current with you. I have an MBA. I write code. It’s an unfair trope. I understand the stereotype I guess I just haven’t experienced it so yeah..but I understand the vitriol against McKinsey in particular.
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
> the dig against MBAs is unnecessary You're right. Ironically, I've seriously considered getting an MBA myself. I changed it to "management-consultant thinking," which feels much more fair, given we are ripping on a McKinsey article in the first place. :) Thanks for the note.
rmbyrro 3y ago
Seems like criticism to "clueless MBA thinking" in the software engineering context. 99% of MBA's are certainly clueless about SWE because they never did SWE professionally. It didn't seem to me like a criticism of MBA's fundamentally speaking.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > 99% of MBA's are certainly clueless about SWE because they never did SWE professionally Anecdotally, most of the MBAs I know are former coders. The last decade of Silicon Valley thinking it can reinvent commerce from first principles has massively increased the value and leverage of former coders with MBAs.
  - guiambros 3y ago
    Anecdotally, I worked with several brilliant engineers who have MBAs. Folks who are extremely technical and can go deep in their fields of expertise, yet they see the bigger picture in terms of business outcomes, and have tools in their toolbox to navigate ambiguity, mitigate escalating complexity, influence senior stakeholders (technical or not), etc. Of course an MBA is not the only way of acquiring those skills, but it is certainly an effective way. It can be incredibly powerful to someone with already strong technical skills. So I'd agree with OP that this trope is unwarranted and out of touch with reality. edit: I like OP's edit, replacing "MBA" with "management-consulting thinking". Lots of old school consulting companies come up with recommendations for areas that they have no domain expertise. While it may look good on paper, it's a recipe for disaster, like the original article describes.
FireBeyond 3y ago
I'd agree with that. I mean (usually?) most people are referring to the person straight from high school to college to MBA to management/executive/consultant without having worked a day in their life, but still. Does grate on me, though I might be biased, having worked 20 years in IT progressing upwards, and now looking at an MBA to round out my formal business education for further advancement.

jowea 3y ago

I wonder if McKinsey just skipped over the part where they hired/assigned specific people for design, inter-team coordination and code monkeying or if they actually decided that "design sessions or managing interdependencies across teams" should not be done. And maybe the corporate $$$ optimization means real technology company will avoid this.

neilv 3y ago

Charitably, I guess they might've meant something different with that quote (say, they were referring to people who were only good at coding, and the roles for design and cross-team coordination were covered better by different people). But they keep coming across poorly on that metrics project. I'm imagining their clients optimizing their operations, by bringing in management consultants, to tell them that the earlier management consultants need to be enabled to do what they do best: stay the heck away from sabotaging software development organizations.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ip26 3y ago

entirely fails to understand that actual software engineering is about solving business problems The irredeemable cynic might wonder if this is because they see themselves as the only ones who should be solving business problems.

mattbuilds 3y ago
Which is funny, because they aren’t very good at it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

infecto 3y ago

Relatedly I have always pondered the value of most consultancy work from the big firms. Maybe this is an unfair attack but it always felt like lots of PowerPoints and not much substance. I can see bringing a consultant in that specializes in maybe a specific manufacturing process or some other type of physical process but have always had trouble seeing the value in the other type of process change consultancy.

sjjshd2283 3y ago
[dead]

paulcole 3y ago

> it entirely fails to understand that actual software engineering is about solving business problems So do most HN discussions about this. Look at how many people will say, “I’d rather be coding than in this meeting…”

Ntrails 3y ago

> In response, the company changed its operating model and clarified roles and responsibilities to enable those highest-value developers to do what they do best: code. Interestingly this is my distaste when I read pro remote-work posts about undisturbed focused time to do "the work". I'm not saying it is intended or correct, but it is the implication I take from it, and I feel it undersells what engineers do

tomohawk 3y ago
There is a time and a place for every purpose. Unfortunately, on site work conditions usually add a lot of friction to getting focused work done. Being potentially more optimal for collaboration work does not make up for this. So, yes, you may hear about the sudden ability of people to get work done at a level they could not do when on site, and so they are happy about this aspect of remote. It's been a couple of years since we went remote with our teams, and it has been a very positive experience for both collaboration and focus. We found that collaboration worked a lot better when it was actually intentional. It made the result of the collaboration more high value and strategic. If you are depending on people accidentally bumping into one another for collaboration to occur, then you are being very poorly led.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]