Managers should be technical enough to understand what is going on, but claiming that an effective manager needs to be coding 80% of their time (as the article says) is idiotic. Why be a manager at all at that point?
I've personally had much worse experiences with managers who wanted to micromanage every technical decision and every line of code vs. those who just trusted their team with it and focused on people management, clearing organizational blockers, roadmapping, project management, communication to executives and other stakeholders, shielding us from company politics and lots more.
> coding, architecting, or doing technical work that requires engineering prowess.
As a software engineer, I don't even spend 80% of the time working coding, in fact it's more like 30%. But I do spend almost 100% of the time doing the stated things above.
However, I do agree with you (mostly). My position is that having an understanding of computer science make them much more efficient in the activities you described, some of which falls into the stated camp. Micromanagement is universally regarded as bad.
Fair point, but there's just no way all the management work fits in 20% of one's time unless they are managing like 2 people in a very narrow problem space.
I think you have a point. But should making decision that require an intimate understanding of the technical stack be part of those activities? Should drafting new features be considered under architecting? I understand that my managers are heavily engaged in these activities and their decisions are challenged by very technically minded people before they are put to work.
New feature requests are certainly within a manager’s purview, but designing how those features are implemented is not - that’s your engineer or architects.
Of course, if your organization expects a manager to also be a tech lead, that’s something else entirely (and not common in most non-startup companies).
I don't think a manager should be coding at all, but Unless they did enginnering work in the past, it is hard to see them providing effective management.
If a manager trusts their reports, they can manage those reports effectively, because they are getting accurate data about what their people are doing. That trust (also known as being professional) short circuits the need for the manager to understand the work being done.
> If a manager trusts their reports, they can manage those reports effectively, because they are getting accurate data about what their people are doing. That trust (also known as being professional) short circuits the need for the manager to understand the work being done.
That works in the happy case. But lots of things work in the happy case.
The problems happen when ICs do things that are good for themselves, but not good for the company. One obvious example of this is resume-driven development.
>If a manager trusts their reports, they can manage those reports effectively, because they are getting accurate data about what their people are doing
This statement is nonsense. How does simply trusting your reports guarantee anything, let alone that you're getting accurate data about what your people are doing? How would you be the wiser if you didn't have a fundamental understanding of the work being done?
>That trust (also known as being professional) short circuits the need for the manager to understand the work being done.
Again, nonsense.
Your statement is akin to saying that being a successful basketball coach doesn't require knowledge of basketball, but rather just simply having to trust in your basketball players. Yet show me how many successful basketball coaches are there that never played the game, or was around the game to develop a fundamental understanding of the game.
Or hell, put it this way: if trust short circuits any need for management to have any understanding, then anyone could be a successful manager. I'm sure my dog trusts me and most folk, I guess by your reasoning, he could be the manager of any department in any company!
Yeah, nonsense. You need some fundamental understanding of what you're managing otherwise you're a bad manager, or simply a figure head...
I've personally had much worse experiences with managers who wanted to micromanage every technical decision and every line of code vs. those who just trusted their team with it and focused on people management, clearing organizational blockers, roadmapping, project management, communication to executives and other stakeholders, shielding us from company politics and lots more.