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RE: Don't Explain Too Much

jasona.work — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:45:49 GMT

Hmm, the topic of this editorial sounds strangely,[url=http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1383742-1550-1.aspx] familiar...[/url]:Whistling:Situations like this, it doesn't help when the manager is / was a technical person, but in an area that has nothing to do with the problem at hand. Some managers (I would think the good ones) would *know* that they don't know as much as the person they're instructing and would trust said persons judgement. The "bad" managers would either work from the (flawed) premise of "I know A, therefore I also know B," or start pushing for more information but not really trying to grasp the topic. Of course, the third possibility is the "I'm the manager, do it my way, period" situation...In the case of the "bad" managers, I would agree that the best thing that can be done is:A) Hope for the best, and do your best to make it workB) Keep a "paper" (OK, e-mail) trail with your attempts at convincing them of the better solutionJason A.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

TravisDBA — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:57:53 GMT

[quote][b]David.Poole (11/29/2012)[/b][hr]Too much detail dilutes management effectiveness.If you are a detail person and a manager then it is too easy to get sucked into detailed technical debates rather than stepping back and letting people get on with it.If a non-technical manager gets highly technical information then they just switch off and miss the key point that you wanted them to understand. If they have a low understanding of the technical world they can get panicked by info that DBAs and other techies regard as business as usual.Alternatively you find them strangely unavailable whenever you need to speak to them.Let them ask for more detail if they require it but find a way of asking why without sounding defensive and patronising. "If you could let me know what your end goal is then this would help me to find the salient facts".[/quote]True story David, but I have worked with some managers in the past that didn't even know what the word "salient" meant. It's not all just on us DBA's to stay low-level and brief in our communications with management. We also expect managers to have some clue as to what is going on in the IT industry today as well. We don't expect Einstein, granted, but we are not expecting Goober either.:-D

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

David.Poole — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:12:11 GMT

Too much detail dilutes management effectiveness.If you are a detail person and a manager then it is too easy to get sucked into detailed technical debates rather than stepping back and letting people get on with it.If a non-technical manager gets highly technical information then they just switch off and miss the key point that you wanted them to understand. If they have a low understanding of the technical world they can get panicked by info that DBAs and other techies regard as business as usual.Alternatively you find them strangely unavailable whenever you need to speak to them.Let them ask for more detail if they require it but find a way of asking why without sounding defensive and patronising. "If you could let me know what your end goal is then this would help me to find the salient facts".

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

hisakimatama — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:00:34 GMT

Oh, certainly. Work does frustrate me on occasion, but usually it takes something orders of magnitude greater than that to bug me :-). I was just weirded out by the situation... In my mind, if we could create a procedure that works, verify that it works, and record its results for error-checking should problems develop. that was a solid defense against trouble. The idea that it could be faulty just because the formulae weren't visible threw me for a loop!

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

Rod at work — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:59:50 GMT

Good admonition, Steve. I'm one who tends to give too much detail to managers. I do this for a variety of reasons, like thinking that I've got to prove to my management that what I do is complicated. And sometimes that results in situations like you've described where management is now micro-managing based upon what they think they understand of the problem. I have to work to not giving too much detail.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

TravisDBA — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:56:43 GMT

Hiza,Just remember to not let these kinds of things get you upset. Managment many times asks dumb questions. It does not mean they are dumb. Just misinformed. There's no such thing as a stupid question, but many times they're the easiest to answer. It's all how you approach it :-D

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:53:17 GMT

[quote][b]brian.francis (11/29/2012)[/b][hr]I agree that the managers don't need the technical details, but a discussion of what options are available and what is most appropriate for the situation is critical. Too often I see IT folks just assume the implementation they did for project X applies for project Y and the business has no idea how their system was implemented. If you don't explain the options with the costs and benefits then they tend not to realize they're even making a choice. Usually when I see people talking very technical, it's because they don't really understand what they're doing so they try to intimidate others so they stop asking questions. This leads to poor communication and a general mess.[/quote]+1

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:52:38 GMT

[quote][b]cfradenburg (11/29/2012)[/b][hr]Based on my experience I'm not sure that I agree with the, "managers shouldn't know," part of this. I fully agree that they shouldn't be the decision makers on topics like this but if they want assurances and details as to what's being done I don't think that's a bad thing. ... [/quote]There's a difference between explaining technically and details. That you run a backup every ten minutes, and you can recover to that level of granularity is a nice explanation. A look at the the nuance of log records, and tail log backups being available and the options available for the BACKUP LOG command, with scripting to move the file off the machine is a bit much.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

hisakimatama — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:47:11 GMT

Haha, as much as I'd wish I could explain less at my current employer, it's usually not possible to do so :hehe:. The main database system here used to be Access, before I migrated the system to SQL Server at their request. It was commonplace for the users to write their own Access queries for various tasks, some of which needed a lot of cleaning up and remodeling to avoid issues (unrestricted UPDATEs, ack!). As a result, management believes that they're just as much into the technical field as I am, which is... Mildly untrue at times, to put it one way.I remember when I had to program in a means of calculating whether packages would fit into shipping boxes, to replace an old system for doing the same thing that was inaccurate and sometimes unable to properly match items to boxes. Thanks to some awesome help from these forums, I got a routine procedure established that would accurately take our products and match them to boxes, as long as it was supplied with updated information whenever we got new boxes.Management inquired about how the procedure worked, and I just explained, "It'll look at the information on all the boxes we have, make comparisons with our products, find the best fit, and store the fit in a table for review as needed." Management wanted a better explanation, and I told them that calculatiions are made with the product data in the database. They wanted to know where the calculations were; naturally, the calculations were in a query in the procedure. They looked horrified. The boss proclaimed that I'd created a coding monster, and this would lead to nothing but trouble. I was puzzled.Apparently, they felt that the calculation formulas themselves should be stored somewhere in the database, too, so they could check the formulas in case they ever needed to know why something went in a certain box. If they didn't know the query formula, how could they ever know it was right? Besides trying to put the item in the box, anyhow? :-PIronically, the old method of doing this was essentially the exact same procedure, except it didn't do a data-based rotation of the items to see if they'd fit another way, and it had to be run by hand. Seemingly, that procedure was never examined by management, and they never had complaints about it until it started causing problems with us paying too much shipping. Either way, at least things are functioning far better now, even if I'm slightly worried about having to explain my coding when it's mostly unnecessary again :hehe:

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

TravisDBA — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:41:56 GMT

[quote][b]jay-h (11/29/2012)[/b][hr]"don't explain too much" is an [i]excellent [/i]bit of advice for [i]any [/i]technical discussion.Of course it goes without saying that you don't misrepresent the situation, talk down or over simplify, but excess explanation so often moves the discussion away from the critical point at hand. If your listener wants more info, by all means provide it freely, but don't unnecessarily muddy the water.Part of the job of a skilled tech person is to strip away (through intelligent analysis) all the complex detail and reduce a messy problem to its critical aspects. It's the inept technician who can't reduce the problem to core principles.[/quote]I agree Jay, you should not explain too much. Get your point across and end it there. If they need more then give it as needed. That said, you should also not just assume your manager is technically ignorant either. Many of them came through the ranks and know very well what you are talking about. Don't just assume because they are a manager that they only understand widgets and bean counts. Like I said before, it pays to know your audience.:-D

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

TravisDBA — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:35:49 GMT

Krowley, i actually did for awhile. i worked at the Cape on the Shuttle program back in the early 90's.:-D

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

jay-h — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:20:16 GMT

"don't explain too much" is an [i]excellent [/i]bit of advice for [i]any [/i]technical discussion.Of course it goes without saying that you don't misrepresent the situation, talk down or over simplify, but excess explanation so often moves the discussion away from the critical point at hand. If your listener wants more info, by all means provide it freely, but don't unnecessarily muddy the water.Part of the job of a skilled tech person is to strip away (through intelligent analysis) all the complex detail and reduce a messy problem to its critical aspects. It's the inept technician who can't reduce the problem to core principles.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

krowley — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:55:14 GMT

[quote][b]TravisDBA (11/29/2012)[/b][hr]I also agree Dizzy and krowley. There are ways to communicate/explain this to a manager without getting too technical and still get the basic point across. However, after explaining in layman's terms (using the backup/restore scenario as an example), they still don't understand the concept of what I am talking about (some are just clueless), then they should go sell flowers for a living. They should not be managing an IT shop. That said, I also should not have to explain what VLF's are to them to get my point across of how much of the data i can get back for them. Its all how you communicate it that makes all the difference. Always try to know your audience at any given time. This is not rocket science people..:-D[/quote]Unless you are doing IT for a rocket company. Then it is rocket science. :-D

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

TravisDBA — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:22:18 GMT

I also agree Dizzy and krowley. There are ways to communicate/explain this to a manager without getting too technical and still get the basic point across. However, after explaining in layman's terms (using the backup/restore scenario as an example), they still don't understand the concept of what I am talking about (some are just clueless), then they should go sell flowers for a living. They should not be managing an IT shop. That said, I also should not have to explain what VLF's are to them to get my point across of how much of the data i can get back for them. Its all how you communicate it that makes all the difference. Always try to know your audience at any given time. This is not rocket science people..:-D

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

krowley — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:18:21 GMT

I am not sure I agree about explaining. This assumes that managers have no technical abilities and couldn't really understand the explanation. This also assumes that every developer is going to use best practices. If I am a manager and we have a situation where we need to restore data from a back up and my developer can't do this in a timely manner or forbid can't actually do it at all, then my head will be on the chopping block, not just my developers. So I want to be darn sure I trust them with something as critical as backups, and that means I want to understand the decisions they are making and why they are making them.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

Dizzy Desi — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 06:56:34 GMT

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

brian.francis — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 06:19:13 GMT

I agree that the managers don't need the technical details, but a discussion of what options are available and what is most appropriate for the situation is critical. Too often I see IT folks just assume the implementation they did for project X applies for project Y and the business has no idea how their system was implemented. If you don't explain the options with the costs and benefits then they tend not to realize they're even making a choice. Usually when I see people talking very technical, it's because they don't really understand what they're doing so they try to intimidate others so they stop asking questions. This leads to poor communication and a general mess.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

cfradenburg — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 06:18:45 GMT

Based on my experience I'm not sure that I agree with the, "managers shouldn't know," part of this. I fully agree that they shouldn't be the decision makers on topics like this but if they want assurances and details as to what's being done I don't think that's a bad thing. If someone asks me how they can know that I can recover data to within 10 minutes in the case of an outage I have no problem explaining the basics of transaction log restores, where we store them, and what alerting we use so we know if they fail. However, if they then turn around and say that it's too complicated and that I need to change it then we'll have a problem. They need to accept that they're getting the basics that a manager needs to know what's happening and that knowing how to pull it off is the job of the DBA team.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

bobfeldsien 7099 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 05:35:08 GMT

I certainly agree with your point. Managers who insist on making technical decisions better left to developers are a real problem and even more so in larger organizations.As a consultant to large government and financial organizations, I run across this very often. I usually respond with a detailed and written technical explanation of what the industry standard best practices are and why they are applicable to the client's specific circumstances. With a smaller client, that is often enough to change their minds. With a large organization, sometimes you just have to do it their way and wait for it to fail. When that happens, you have already documented that you know what the problem is and how to fix it. And if it doesn't fail, then at the very least you have strengthened your image as a "team player". And on rare occasions, you will find that the client was actually correct for their particular situation.Bob Feldsien

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

Dalkeith — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 01:46:09 GMT

I would slightly alter that toHave clear lines of responsibilty and let the best people have full control of their areas. That means at some point management or anyone else relinquishes decisions on certain aspects to those that know.This tends to happen naturally in small organisations but gets worse as the organisation increases in size.

RE: Don't Explain Too Much

s_osborne2 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 01:10:14 GMT

Nice article Steve. I simply couldn't agree more with this. Managers should have faith in their staff and trust that they know what they're doing. I have sometimes found that if managers spent more time managing, and less time trying to understand the technical details of *everything* then team morale would be better.Thankfully these days i'm in a place where this isn't a problem.

Don't Explain Too Much

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:05:01 GMT

Comments posted to this topic are about the item [B]Don't Explain Too Much[/B]