September 29, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Relational Manager
September 30, 2008 at 1:27 am
Personally, I don't see a manager who doesn't understand what I do as a curse. What I do see as problem is if that manager doesn't understand how what I do fits into the overall picture and benefits the company. Fortunately my manager fits neither of those profiles.
Perhaps it's a quirk specific to me, but I also don't see anything frustrating about explaining technical concepts to non-technical people. Instead, I see it as an opportunity (sorry for the cliche) - if I can't simplify a concept and translate it into plain English well enough for the recipient to understand, then perhaps I don't understand the concept well enough myself, and need to undergo a spot of revision. And even then, I find the goodwill gained when people realise you've taken the time to explain something properly makes future dealings so much easier.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
September 30, 2008 at 5:27 am
I also feel it is not necessary for an IT manager to understand every aspect of SQL or even of IT; it is far more important for them to understand how the data, and the rest of IT, fit into the corporate structure. Someone has to be able to stress the importance of IT to the company and show how IT can benefit the company and often times that is the IT manager. If my manager thinks my job is all magic that's fine with me.
September 30, 2008 at 6:17 am
I've had both non-technical and technical managers and, in my experience, there are problems with both. My non-technical manager didn't understand that to make an application simple for the user, meant more work for the developers and that supporting third party apps sometimes means more down time with an issue because you don't have the source code.
The problem I had with technical managers is that they wanted to be able to set direction like a manager, but did not want to manage in any other areas, they wanted develop. It's not a good situation when your manager puts coding first and managing gets what's left, if any.
September 30, 2008 at 6:17 am
Good for you Steve, another plus for those of us who start out dumb -- we don't have to "dumb down" anything!
September 30, 2008 at 6:41 am
I have a semi-techincal manager, and for bonus I report to the non-techincal President of Sales. I like explaining how things work in development and databases and project management. I just happen to talk a lot to my manager so he knows what is going on and I am pretty good at setting time lines and budgets. So, I a built a really good relationship of trust, respect and performance.
The President on the other hand managed me like a salesperson. I hated it. He would set the goals and I would tell him I couldn't do them because of various reasons. None of which were due to laziness. But he would push and push. I spent one year thinking I would be fired in December. I went to therapy when I couldn't stop crying and didn't want to go to work anymore. It turned out that he didn't care that I couldn't do it and thought I was just the greatest employee ever, he just didn't want to give me a bonus for free. The goals were just busy work.
The past 3 years I haven't cared about those bonus's I took so seriously and just cash the checks. Too bad it took me 9 years to figure that out.
September 30, 2008 at 6:52 am
Well, I've seen my share of blowhards and brainiacs, and I think that manager-managed relationships require a significant portion of empathy, as well as solid management skills, on the part of the manager. Some people are naturally predisposed to management. Most are not, and they subsequently ruin it for everyone.
One peeve I have is "micromanagement". I really abhor working in a micro-managed environment. Instead of being free to pursue my research, testing, and coding, I instead must explain how and why everything is done. What's worse, is when a micromanager insists upon sitting at your desk while you debug some code. If someone doesn't have a modicum of programming skills, they shouldn't be allowed to pretend they know how to fix a threading problem.
"What's that variable mean?"
"Why is there an IF statement there?"
"Wouldn't it be easier to just...."
"I don't understand. Why is it so hard?"
"What's a thread?"
"So, how does this web service thing work?"
Not that I've ever had the pleasure of working with a micromanager... 🙂
September 30, 2008 at 6:56 am
Jimbo (9/30/2008)
Not that I've ever had the pleasure of working with a micromanager... 🙂
I have, and it is no pleasure...
September 30, 2008 at 7:14 am
I've never had th misfortune of being saddled with a poor manager. I have one boss who is himself a programmer, still spending at least half his office day developing new apps. From the start, he was very hands-off, giving me help when i needed but never being overbearing.
I've worked for another who was decidedly more of a "management type". He instituted a number of new policies in the department that were a little annoying at first (more documentation mostly) but have proved to be a great asset; our biggest problem is with managers from other departments who go through an entire approval process for new specs, then the day after the changes go live, decide that we did it all wrong. I'd say that, if nothing else, having a manager dedicated to CYA for himself and his department is a good thing.
September 30, 2008 at 7:35 am
I kind of fell into DBA work accidentally, so it leaves me with a unique perspective. Since I acquired all my IT knowledge without formal instruction, I can easily translate for the non-techie manager. This hasn't helped much, though. In my short career of 9 years in IT, I've worked for 2 non-techie managers, and the greatest obstacle I've dealt with is their ignorance and misconceptions. Both have had fanciful ideas of the way they thought things should work, but would not entertain any discussion of why their fantasies couldn't be reality. In my current position I'm dealing with a department manager who is also (and primarily) the finance director. He happens to know a little IT lingo, so he's now in charge, coming up with ideas that we have to figure out how to bring to reality. Whenever we disagree with his idea, or simply can't do it without a huge financial investment, we're accused of not being team players and not being open to new ideas.
September 30, 2008 at 7:57 am
Andy Lennon (9/30/2008)
... our biggest problem is with managers from other departments who go through an entire approval process for new specs, then the day after the changes go live, decide that we did it all wrong...
The real problem (I suspect) is with the old fashion "high ceremony", "big design up front" approach to developing systems. Try to introduce a more modern "agile development" approach, with lots of iterative deliveries and feedback.
Managers can't be expected to read or understand specs, they can only make constructive input when you give them something to try.
September 30, 2008 at 7:59 am
When I was was consulting in State government, my manager was enthusiastically nontechnical. I think that he looked at the database as some magical construct from which I apparently conjured the reports and statistics that he needed. It was occasionally frustrating, but it did give me a lot of experience in translating the work I did into nontechnical terms, which as others have mentioned is a good skill to have.
Now I'm very fortunate in that my manager is a former mainframe programmer who has a pretty good understanding of relational databases, ETL, and data processing, if not in SQL Server specifically. More importantly, at least from the standpoint of my own sanity, he trusts me to do what I need to do in order to keep things running smoothly. He's probably the best boss that I have ever had.
September 30, 2008 at 8:04 am
Jim Russell (9/30/2008) The real problem (I suspect) is with the old fashion "high ceremony", "big design up front" approach to developing systems.
That, and a culture of planning everything around a deadline, instead of coming up with a realistic deadline after planning.
September 30, 2008 at 8:11 am
I once had a manager who is very technical, which was good at the beginning because he helped me learn SQL Server, database development, design, etc... But once I got on my own two feet, he would still dig deep into the minutia of what I was doing which prevented me from exploring and learning on my own. As the company grew, he ended up managing about a dozen people, so eventually he didn't have enough time to focus on one person's details. Although I felt he still got too involved with everyday activity, which stunted creativity and innovation within the group.
September 30, 2008 at 8:28 am
Jim Russell (9/30/2008)
Andy Lennon (9/30/2008)
... our biggest problem is with managers from other departments who go through an entire approval process for new specs, then the day after the changes go live, decide that we did it all wrong...The real problem (I suspect) is with the old fashion "high ceremony", "big design up front" approach to developing systems. Try to introduce a more modern "agile development" approach, with lots of iterative deliveries and feedback.
Managers can't be expected to read or understand specs, they can only make constructive input when you give them something to try.
To clarify, the problem in my situation is not so much with managers being unable to provide adequate specs (the vast majority of the specs are for changes to or extensions of an existing application) but with being unable/unwilling to proofread. We get requests like "if data point X equals Y, update field Z to value 123", then after multiple layers of testing (and corresponding signoffs), including by the managers who create the requests we are told that "field Z" actually needs to be 456. In other situations we are asked to include particular datasets in some existing functionality, only to find later that the request was utterly wrong and wasn't what they needed at all.
I can certainly understand and appreciate the difficulty of fully articulating what's needed before having any idea of how it'll work, but some of these folks are just ridiculous. They ask for something, we deliver precisely what they ask for (which of course has nothing to do with what they WANT), and they try to escalate our mistakes/incompetence to the highest level. My point earlier was that having a manager equipped to defend against that kind of nonsense is a great boon.
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