3 ms·
Not sure how many people here have managed people before, or at least have first hand experience in a company that has 1) too many managers, 2) too few managers
by happywolf 14y ago
Not sure how many people here have managed people before, or at least have first hand experience in a company that has 1) too many managers, 2) too few managers.
- Spearchucker 14y agoI have experience of both. I ran a Microsoft practice at EDS, where there were too many managers. The highlight of that one was losing a multi-million £ contract because another project manager felt my approach didn't produce enough paper work, stopped the project and started gathering requirements, again, formally. After that I worked for a smaller software house I'd better not name, where I was responsible for 70 developers. I had no idea who was working on what because no one ever did what the status reports suggested. I resigned. The frustration in both cases was that engineering management has been solved. It's been solved in the 80's. Any attempt these days to introduce principles I learnt from books like Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions, Peopleware or Mythical Man Month got rejected, because most organisations these days have a chosen way of doing things that some manager thinks of as a personal fiefdom. Any attempt to stray from the defined approach is squashed, like, immediately.
- trimbo 14y agoHow about the companies that have too many "managers" and not enough managers. I've experienced that as well.
- happywolf 14y agoI guess those are usually called 'stakeholders' instead of 'managers'. Yes, they will try to assert their own little asses over you to show they are somebody. Painful, but it is part of work life. [shrug]