Who is a manager
I read the publication of 13 reasons not to be a manager with comments, and something boiled inside, so much so that I decided to write my first post on Habr. I understand that the majority of habrovchan are developers, engineers, many of whom have become project managers, team leads, do not want to offend anyone, but I will still lay out my thoughts.
It's amazing that a person has worked for 10 years as an IT manager, and he doesn’t have instructions and documentation on what the manager should do during the day. So maybe the textbook "Fundamentals of Management" at least worth reading. In general, management is a separate scientific specialty ... Thousands of scientific experts work in it, some management theories come up, books are published, studies are conducted, the same agile methods (scrum and others) are developed. Maybe there should be instructions to search? Oh yeah, there’s one “vodichka” written, and we have real projects here, and even the workers are somehow wrong, they don’t fit under any management theory.
Surprisingly, it turns out that programmers are engaged in useful work - they write code, debug, test, learn new technologies, and the manager runs all day somewhere, rakes mail, is present at useless meetings. What does he need to learn new technologies on the run? No, for a start, it’s enough to learn 3 basic functions of a manager:
- organization and planning
- motivation
- control.
It turns out that for each of these functions there are a number of specific applied methods and approaches that can be used in management. Do not like to rush back and forth? So it can better plan and improve the organization of work. Made a plan, but it does not work? Well, the developer’s program doesn’t run the first time, try to debug. Tired of raking mail every day? So can your organization have problems with communication channels? Raise the problem and suggest a solution. Can't do anything, because innovation in management is blocked by top management? Refer to the top management, fight with bureaucracy, fight with the system, if the organization in which you work, means something for you.
It turns out that if you became a manager, then everyone is stopping you from working, they are always climbing with their problems ... And the workday is irregular, it is hard to focus, and the responsibility is greater, and there is a dead end ahead. And you did not know that the work of a manager is primarily work with people? After all, what is an organization in the modern sense is first of all people, each of which has its own goals and needs. Gone are the days of the Fayol organization, where the person was a simple cog in the system. Managing a modern employee is much more difficult, but start at least from Maslow's pyramid, learn the needs of your subordinates. There is an opinion that the manager can effectively manage 7 employees, maybe you should use this rule?
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And imagine if a crisis occurs in an organization. For example, the main customer leaves, funding is unstable or stops altogether, the external environment is very changeable and it is extremely difficult to adapt to it. What tools will you use in this case? How now to organize the work of subordinates? Have you tried to motivate people if they have a salary delay for a couple of months? Here we come to another important aspect of the management of the organization - it is a systematic approach to management, the development of the organization and the organization’s acquisition of qualities that will help it quickly change and adapt to the external environment. And this is not the task of top management, but the immediate task of every manager at every level of management.
I have nothing against engineers becoming managers, but I believe that the company should have a systematic approach to management, when at every level of management there is professionalism and a desire to achieve their own goals along with the goals of the organization.
I also want to say that I have been engaged in IT management for more than 5 years, and I believe that IT makes an enormous contribution to management theory and practice. Agile methods, in my opinion, are very progressive practices in both development and management, and can be used in other sectors of the economy. Modern IT companies are often an example of successful socially oriented companies, as there have been many publications on Habré, so the future is ours!
It's amazing that a person has worked for 10 years as an IT manager, and he doesn’t have instructions and documentation on what the manager should do during the day. So maybe the textbook "Fundamentals of Management" at least worth reading. In general, management is a separate scientific specialty ... Thousands of scientific experts work in it, some management theories come up, books are published, studies are conducted, the same agile methods (scrum and others) are developed. Maybe there should be instructions to search? Oh yeah, there’s one “vodichka” written, and we have real projects here, and even the workers are somehow wrong, they don’t fit under any management theory.
Surprisingly, it turns out that programmers are engaged in useful work - they write code, debug, test, learn new technologies, and the manager runs all day somewhere, rakes mail, is present at useless meetings. What does he need to learn new technologies on the run? No, for a start, it’s enough to learn 3 basic functions of a manager:
- organization and planning
- motivation
- control.
It turns out that for each of these functions there are a number of specific applied methods and approaches that can be used in management. Do not like to rush back and forth? So it can better plan and improve the organization of work. Made a plan, but it does not work? Well, the developer’s program doesn’t run the first time, try to debug. Tired of raking mail every day? So can your organization have problems with communication channels? Raise the problem and suggest a solution. Can't do anything, because innovation in management is blocked by top management? Refer to the top management, fight with bureaucracy, fight with the system, if the organization in which you work, means something for you.
It turns out that if you became a manager, then everyone is stopping you from working, they are always climbing with their problems ... And the workday is irregular, it is hard to focus, and the responsibility is greater, and there is a dead end ahead. And you did not know that the work of a manager is primarily work with people? After all, what is an organization in the modern sense is first of all people, each of which has its own goals and needs. Gone are the days of the Fayol organization, where the person was a simple cog in the system. Managing a modern employee is much more difficult, but start at least from Maslow's pyramid, learn the needs of your subordinates. There is an opinion that the manager can effectively manage 7 employees, maybe you should use this rule?
')
And imagine if a crisis occurs in an organization. For example, the main customer leaves, funding is unstable or stops altogether, the external environment is very changeable and it is extremely difficult to adapt to it. What tools will you use in this case? How now to organize the work of subordinates? Have you tried to motivate people if they have a salary delay for a couple of months? Here we come to another important aspect of the management of the organization - it is a systematic approach to management, the development of the organization and the organization’s acquisition of qualities that will help it quickly change and adapt to the external environment. And this is not the task of top management, but the immediate task of every manager at every level of management.
I have nothing against engineers becoming managers, but I believe that the company should have a systematic approach to management, when at every level of management there is professionalism and a desire to achieve their own goals along with the goals of the organization.
I also want to say that I have been engaged in IT management for more than 5 years, and I believe that IT makes an enormous contribution to management theory and practice. Agile methods, in my opinion, are very progressive practices in both development and management, and can be used in other sectors of the economy. Modern IT companies are often an example of successful socially oriented companies, as there have been many publications on Habré, so the future is ours!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/165301/
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