Fire Your IT Boss

theodp writes "Instead of laying off techies who directly help users, Robert X. Cringely argues that the best place to cut IT organizations is at the top. One of the great problems in IT management, Cringely says, is that the big bosses typically haven't a clue what is happening, what needs to happen, and what it all should cost. He issues the following challenge: 'If you are managing an IT shop and can't write the code to render "hello world" in C, HTML, PHP, and pull "hello world" from a MySQL database using a perl script, then you are in the wrong job.' Even with help from Google, Cringely believes many technical managers would fail this test and should get the boot as a result — you can't manage what you don't understand."

Comments

Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that

[MadnessASAP]

Offtopic but if the CEO of Ford can't identify the parts to a carb (not that their typically used anymore) he probably deserves the boot anyways. Carburetors are something that gets taught to a 15 year old student and is as such certainly within the grasp.

On the other hand though, personal experience from working in a garage would lead me to believe that the incompetency of a large part of Ford is 2nd only to GM.

Re:How it is

[symbolset]

I don't believe you have enough knowledge in all areas of IT to step in and replace anyone, as well as train their replacement..... You must run some small narrowly focused projects... The projects I have been involved with have involved SAN, Unix and network admins, DBA's, developers, BA's, etc, etc. There's no way that a PM could step in to any one of those roles, fill in at 100% capacity, train the replacement and still manage the project.

You don't believe. I shouldn't be trolled so easily, but ok. I've been trolled so let's just trot out our what-fors, shall we?

I learned machine language, Assembly, BASIC and APL on the IBM 5150 under Allen Schultz in 1980. He helped invent the "PC" and was in for a couple decades on that whole "VMS" thing. Several of the developers of the ADA "strawman" through "ironman" implementations are personal friends of mine. By 1986 I had solved all of the solveable classical problems in any language, was a published programmer, and had written my first program that is still in use today. Shortly thereafter I had written a program to write poetry sufficiently to get an A in high school poetry class, an AI to challenge Minerva, and explored the depths of the Mandelbrot. I've memorized all of the Communications of the ACM up to 1980, and I understand them. I've written several programming languages - each better than the last and none better than C. I was a certified network admin for Unix SVR3 in 1985. I've integrated databases, enabled printers, mastered the classical compression algorithms and written an indexing algorithm as good as Google's that you can't have because it belongs to me and me alone. You can use it here though. I gave up being a .com billionaire long before it became fashionable. I am a certified and certifiable member of the technolgy priest class.

I've used dozens of successful platforms and hundreds of unsuccessful ones. I know people. People who know stuff. I've tested more failed technologies than you've run successful ones. Here on slashdot I've enjoyed communication with most of the pantheon of IT names. Most of them I've agreed with, and some not.

Since school I've mastered all the languages that I care to. I consider programming a "solved problem" that is no longer interesting because I've plumbed its mysteries and found its depths in sufficient variety to know there is no more to learn. The odds are very good that I've installed more computers, fixed more computers, installed more versions of every operating system of every version, than you'll ever see, let alone do yourself - literally thousands of each.

All of the people I work for have just as interesting stories, and all of the people who work for me have interesting stories of their own.

All of this takes away from the point. I'm replaceable. You're replaceable. Get over it. Do your job well and know the jobs of your overs and unders. If you catch a bus your unders will be ready to step up - and if your overs catch a bus you'll be ready too. Your customers deserve no less.

What have you got?

Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that

[mhall119]

Yeah, you'd pretty much suck as an employee. The manager I described would fire you in under a week. If you can't do your job without a manager, then no amount of management will make you good at your job.