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Simple concept, the author is overthinking it. I have been "problem manager" for many large outages. I use the term "problem manager" to remind people that an

Simple concept, the author is overthinking it. I have been "problem manager" for many large outages. I use the term "problem manager" to remind people that an outage is something you manage just like any other kind of project, except on much shorter time scales. Everything you learned about project management applies to dealing with outages. > Sometimes an investigator needs to go silent for a while to chase down a hunch, or collect some data, or research some question. As long as such a silence is negotiated in advance, with a specific time to reconvene, it can serve a crucial purpose. I call this functional dead air. Hey, if you are the kind of project manager that talks and does not listen to your team... that's a problem. My ideal stance on those occasions is to present myself as somebody who "wants to be educated about the issue". I think it is more helpful and creates less stress. As I am asking questions I am trying to not seem to be interrogating them but instead emphasise I am a noob on the topic but need to learn quickly. My ideal is this scene from Margin Call: https://youtu.be/Hhy7JUinlu0?t=67 https://youtu.be/Hhy7JUinlu0?t=67 This usually is actually true, btw. There is no single way to do it right but as a manager it is your job to maintain good information flow between you and your reports and on an outage, your reports are essentially everybody involved.

mlrtime 3y ago
High level exec or PM/PG I agree with you. However ICs are usually engineers that are more equipped to help debug the problem. So I sort of disagree with you, at least from the articles examples. These aren't managers, these are usually Staff+ Commanders that need to fight fires. They don't need to be spoken as if they are young child (example in the clip).
- onetimeuse92304 3y ago
  Well... I am an engineer with quarter of century of development experience, just typically not in the know on the particulars of the given part of the system. What I describe is my personal style which has been described as "detective". When things do not work well, I tend to get into the thick of things to get a sense of what is really happening "on the shop floor". I remember, at the start of my career, my disdain for the execs. I couldn't really understand how you can go this far and yet don't understand the simplest basics of the business we are doing. Now I know that it is mighty hard to have true sense when everything you are being told is carefully filtered and worded, when every person you talk to is completely focused on how they appear in the discussion rather than about solving the problem. So to fight this I get into a detective mode and I try to appear friendly to people, genuinely interested (which is not hard because I actually am!) and not trying to sound like all knowing and all powerful. And I do defer to engineers a lot, but I also tell them that they need to be able to support decisions with information.
  - mlrtime 3y ago
    I understand your point, but do you do this during a Sev1 incident at a FAANG type company? Meaning company.com just went down, 1M+ users are unable to login. I don't see how your style works, you need fire fighters not detectives.

mlrtime 3y ago

High level exec or PM/PG I agree with you. However ICs are usually engineers that are more equipped to help debug the problem. So I sort of disagree with you, at least from the articles examples. These aren't managers, these are usually Staff+ Commanders that need to fight fires. They don't need to be spoken as if they are young child (example in the clip).

onetimeuse92304 3y ago
Well... I am an engineer with quarter of century of development experience, just typically not in the know on the particulars of the given part of the system. What I describe is my personal style which has been described as "detective". When things do not work well, I tend to get into the thick of things to get a sense of what is really happening "on the shop floor". I remember, at the start of my career, my disdain for the execs. I couldn't really understand how you can go this far and yet don't understand the simplest basics of the business we are doing. Now I know that it is mighty hard to have true sense when everything you are being told is carefully filtered and worded, when every person you talk to is completely focused on how they appear in the discussion rather than about solving the problem. So to fight this I get into a detective mode and I try to appear friendly to people, genuinely interested (which is not hard because I actually am!) and not trying to sound like all knowing and all powerful. And I do defer to engineers a lot, but I also tell them that they need to be able to support decisions with information.
- mlrtime 3y ago
  I understand your point, but do you do this during a Sev1 incident at a FAANG type company? Meaning company.com just went down, 1M+ users are unable to login. I don't see how your style works, you need fire fighters not detectives.