How to become a good manager
I think many will agree that we have a lot of good IT specialists. And even our education, as well as political, economic and other factors, can not prevent much from becoming a good IT specialist if there is a desire. But with the managers in the field of IT is not so good ...
By IT managers, I mean team leaders, project managers, department heads, scram masters, online managers, etc. With the top management, things look better, because they are either sent from abroad, or they are representatives of a rare type of executive technicians who sometimes live in the wild IT environment.
What properties should a good manager have? First, he must be able to communicate with different people, as well as lead them. Secondly, to be well-versed in related areas - psychology, economics, law, to understand such issues as motivation, moral hazard, risk assessment, demand-supply, labor law, international law, intellectual property.
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These subjects are nominally taught at technical universities, but their quantity and quality tend to zero. Thus, university education does not solve the issue of educating IT managers.
So where do you get IT managers? You will not take managers from the adjacent fields - they simply do not have enough qualifications.
It remains the only option - to grow managers from developers. And this has several problems, one of which is the need to change thinking.
Managers and programmers have a very important difference in thinking: the programmer is focused on the process - it is important for him to create an elegant architecture, write perfect code with comments, come up with a cunning system of plug-ins and write on new (or favorite) technologies. The manager, in turn, aims (must be aimed) at the result - the finished product within the designated timeframe and budget. At the same time, the beauty of the code goes to the second (I would even say, to the penultimate) plan. Because of this inconsistency, problems between managers and developers are not uncommon.
The problem is that it is impossible to change your thinking in a day or a week. According to expert estimates, the process of transformation of thinking takes from six months to four years.
And here lies one of the main problems. The average duration of work of an IT specialist in one company is 1.5-2 years. Therefore, companies can be almost 100% sure that the developer will not work in their company when his training process is over. Thus, it makes no sense to start teaching him ...
The second problem is that a rare developer will look ahead for 3-4 years and will plan his managerial future ... without external intervention. Unfortunately, HR is more concerned about how to harass the next javista and buy a new batch of cookies so that at least these don't run away.
You also need to remember that not every techie can become a good manager. The scheme “today is the best developer, tomorrow is a good manager” does not work. You can lose a good developer and get a bad manager. The economic effect of this is not even worth starting to count.
The best time to start transforming a developer into a manager is the middle level. At this time, you need to start reading specialized literature (and not just technology literature). The best place to start with Peopleware is Timothy Lester and Joel Spolsky's “Joel on Programming.” And further down the list .
The work of the manager is based on managing people. The problem is this: to become a good IT specialist, you need only a computer, the Internet and the desire; a good manager without practice is unlikely to succeed.
Another point that many miss. In any situation, for everything that happens in the development team, the manager (manager) should be responsible.
I repeat once again: the manager should be responsible for all the jambs in the team.
In the age of scram and flexible methodologies, responsibility is smeared among team members, managers and the customer, that is, there is no personal responsibility. Needless to say, this is very beneficial for the companies and the developers themselves.
Life example: I once asked a question to my manager, who will take responsibility for the unrealistic assessment, the lack of qualified personnel and the implemented management methodology called scrum. To which he received a surprised answer: everything. With personal responsibility for their work, nothing like that. I think it is not necessary to say that the project failed miserably, and no one at the same time incurred personal punishment.
Understanding and taking personal responsibility for yourself and your subordinates is one of the most important qualities of a good manager.
By the way, there is another side effect: because of, I’m not afraid of this word, stupid managers, some normal specialists change jobs, and some are beginning to incline to think that it’s better to work without managers at all (articles on such topics can be easily found on the Internet) .
You don’t have to go far: in the same company, my colleagues and I for several months hid the real state of affairs from the manager so that God forbid he didn’t intervene in the development process and didn’t save everything that worked perfectly without him.
Also several times observed the situation when managers after some time refused their positions and turned back into developers. There are several reasons: salary growth, as a rule, is insignificant (if there is one at all), and duties and headaches are much more.
In addition, the situation when a developer earns more than his manager is not uncommon in IT companies, although in other areas this happens very rarely. This can also explain the reluctance of many techies to become managers.
The manager must have charisma, have a huge amount of knowledge, be an authority for his subordinates. All this needs to be multiplied by technical knowledge. Do you already have such people? Your task is to do everything so that they are not acquired by your competitors.
And developers need to answer in advance to the question whether they want to become managers in the future, and if the answer is positive, start preparing for this in several years.
By IT managers, I mean team leaders, project managers, department heads, scram masters, online managers, etc. With the top management, things look better, because they are either sent from abroad, or they are representatives of a rare type of executive technicians who sometimes live in the wild IT environment.
Education
What properties should a good manager have? First, he must be able to communicate with different people, as well as lead them. Secondly, to be well-versed in related areas - psychology, economics, law, to understand such issues as motivation, moral hazard, risk assessment, demand-supply, labor law, international law, intellectual property.
')
These subjects are nominally taught at technical universities, but their quantity and quality tend to zero. Thus, university education does not solve the issue of educating IT managers.
So where do you get IT managers? You will not take managers from the adjacent fields - they simply do not have enough qualifications.
It remains the only option - to grow managers from developers. And this has several problems, one of which is the need to change thinking.
Thinking
Managers and programmers have a very important difference in thinking: the programmer is focused on the process - it is important for him to create an elegant architecture, write perfect code with comments, come up with a cunning system of plug-ins and write on new (or favorite) technologies. The manager, in turn, aims (must be aimed) at the result - the finished product within the designated timeframe and budget. At the same time, the beauty of the code goes to the second (I would even say, to the penultimate) plan. Because of this inconsistency, problems between managers and developers are not uncommon.
The problem is that it is impossible to change your thinking in a day or a week. According to expert estimates, the process of transformation of thinking takes from six months to four years.
And here lies one of the main problems. The average duration of work of an IT specialist in one company is 1.5-2 years. Therefore, companies can be almost 100% sure that the developer will not work in their company when his training process is over. Thus, it makes no sense to start teaching him ...
The second problem is that a rare developer will look ahead for 3-4 years and will plan his managerial future ... without external intervention. Unfortunately, HR is more concerned about how to harass the next javista and buy a new batch of cookies so that at least these don't run away.
You also need to remember that not every techie can become a good manager. The scheme “today is the best developer, tomorrow is a good manager” does not work. You can lose a good developer and get a bad manager. The economic effect of this is not even worth starting to count.
The best time to start transforming a developer into a manager is the middle level. At this time, you need to start reading specialized literature (and not just technology literature). The best place to start with Peopleware is Timothy Lester and Joel Spolsky's “Joel on Programming.” And further down the list .
Practice
The work of the manager is based on managing people. The problem is this: to become a good IT specialist, you need only a computer, the Internet and the desire; a good manager without practice is unlikely to succeed.
A responsibility
Another point that many miss. In any situation, for everything that happens in the development team, the manager (manager) should be responsible.
I repeat once again: the manager should be responsible for all the jambs in the team.
In the age of scram and flexible methodologies, responsibility is smeared among team members, managers and the customer, that is, there is no personal responsibility. Needless to say, this is very beneficial for the companies and the developers themselves.
Life example: I once asked a question to my manager, who will take responsibility for the unrealistic assessment, the lack of qualified personnel and the implemented management methodology called scrum. To which he received a surprised answer: everything. With personal responsibility for their work, nothing like that. I think it is not necessary to say that the project failed miserably, and no one at the same time incurred personal punishment.
Understanding and taking personal responsibility for yourself and your subordinates is one of the most important qualities of a good manager.
By the way, there is another side effect: because of, I’m not afraid of this word, stupid managers, some normal specialists change jobs, and some are beginning to incline to think that it’s better to work without managers at all (articles on such topics can be easily found on the Internet) .
You don’t have to go far: in the same company, my colleagues and I for several months hid the real state of affairs from the manager so that God forbid he didn’t intervene in the development process and didn’t save everything that worked perfectly without him.
Also several times observed the situation when managers after some time refused their positions and turned back into developers. There are several reasons: salary growth, as a rule, is insignificant (if there is one at all), and duties and headaches are much more.
In addition, the situation when a developer earns more than his manager is not uncommon in IT companies, although in other areas this happens very rarely. This can also explain the reluctance of many techies to become managers.
Instead of conclusion
The manager must have charisma, have a huge amount of knowledge, be an authority for his subordinates. All this needs to be multiplied by technical knowledge. Do you already have such people? Your task is to do everything so that they are not acquired by your competitors.
And developers need to answer in advance to the question whether they want to become managers in the future, and if the answer is positive, start preparing for this in several years.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/183252/
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