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When Developers Work Late, Should the Manager Stay?
jammag writes "A veteran developer looks back — in irritation — at those times he had to work late and his unskilled manager stayed too, just to look over his shoulder and add worry and fret to the process. Now, that same developer is a manager himself — and recently stayed late to ride herd over late-working developers. 'And guess what? Yep, I hadn't coded in years and never in the language he had to work with.' Yet now he understood: his own butt was on the line, so he was staying put. Still, does it really help developers to have management hovering on a late evening, even if the boss handles pizza delivery?"
My boss has the perfect answer for this:
Get everyone set up with dinner/beverages. Then, go home, sign in from there, walk away from the computer and keep the pager close.
We page him if we need anything, or when we get finished.
Out of our hair, but still handy if needed. Perfect.
Oh, and ideally the manager should have figured out how not to have it come down to late-night; but we don't live in an ideal world.
This is highly unlikely in typical development, the reason is that schedules are based on a web of falsehoods. Not lies, just things that everyone should know are false but pretend are true.
Project scope usually ends up being a falsehood, the scope changes and everyone pretends it has not and the schedule for the previous scope can still be hit. Which leads to late nights and these are typically not the fault of direct management but hte whole management structure.
Time to complete the project is usually a falsehood because estimates are made which by definition are wrong, and the schedule is set as if those estimates are fact. Is this the fault of the direct manager or the whole organization.
All of which lead to attempts to over-estimate which are bad because most of the time the project fills the time available, which means they cost more than they should.
I am sure a lot of us can think of many other things in project management that are treated as fact when in reality they are false.
My favorite was when my manager would ask "on a scale of 0-100%, where are we on (x)?" One of my coworkers working on the installation scripting got fed up with it and answered:
"It's at 0% because it doesn't fucking work. It will remain at 0% until I work all the bugs out of it. When I get that last bug fixed, it'll magically jump to 100%. Let me be so I can finish it!"
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
That's 4iedBandit's manager's job. It should go something like this:
4iedBandit's manager to both the developers' manager(s) & QA manager, CC the next person up the food chain: Because your people fell asleep at the switch, 4iedBandit & I had to stay after hours to install a crapload of servers to make up for your sloppy work just to get performance back to where it's supposed to be. The hardware & licensing costs for those servers, his OT pay and the food I bought him is coming out of your budgets.
Other managers to their people: WTF is wrong with you people?
Other managers to 4iedBandit & his manager: We apologize for what happened and we will be personally taking measures to ensure this doesn't happen again.
Many years ago a colleague told me a tale (with misty eyes) of a former boss who'd done exactly that - when everyone had to work through a weekend he came in first, left last and appointed himself as chief coffee maker and senior takeout waiter.
That kind of stuff breeds loyalty in employees. You'd think more managers would realize this. Especially if the manager's attitude is a humble one about clearing away problems and taking responsibility for issues and decisions. If you put that together in a positive work environment I'll stick around. Heck, I stuck around far too many years at one job that was a clear dead-end for me because I loved working with the team and my boss was a real mensch. Hard to find nice environments like that.
Sadly, they took that boss out in a political coup. It seems he was too focused on doing a good job managing and building a great team to spend the necessary time on politics, back-stabbing, and subterfuge. The details involved having his IT department's budget gutted to buy a penthouse for the CFO.
I recall a question used (many years ago) on some OCS exams. A detailed list of available materials was supplied, along with a sketch of the terrain surrounding a portion of a stream. The question was "How would you build a bridge capable of carrying jeeps across this stream?" The correct answer was "Sergeant, take these men and this pile of stuff and build a bridge across this stream. I'll be back in three hours." Some incorrect answers did get people into various specialist training programs.
Wow! There's all these stories of very noble bosses ordering pizza and helping in supportive roles. I've never had a boss like that. Where do you get one??
My last job, after I had been there less than a month, I was asked to work all weekend over Memorial Day weekend. He called me on Monday while he was at home barbecuing with his family to ask how all the work was going. I was in the office by myself, wishing I could strangle him through the phone. When he did come by late at night or a weekend, he wasn't supportive, but hovered and bickered over programming style and strategy. That job didn't last long...
That is not going to work. Really, that is not going to work. I've got more than a decade of professional development experience, approx. half of that doing agile development. Developer, scrum master, project manager (PMP certified) - been there, done that, still doing it. Agile is not a magic wand which solves all problems.
Agile's forte is adjusting scope in a flexible way - to allow continuous input on priorities and features, to decrease cost of change, and to avoid schedule surprises by only scheduling well defined parts (if you don't know what you'll be doing, you schedule a timeboxed investigation instead). One good scenario is product development - you have a pile of potential features, and a rough release schedule. Another good fit is a scenario where the team is working directly with the customer, and the customer gets to select what gets done and changed (adjust scope) within the schedule.
In your scenario, scope and schedule are set. Several staples of agile methodologies may come in very useful, like quick daily status meetings, continuous integration etc... but you aren't doing agile development. You need to do the project the traditional way - break down the deliverables, estimate, schedule, do risk management and see if this is at all realistic. PERT is probably a better fit for your situtation.
I've been working in IT since I was a teenager, and I'm currently in the second term of my return to college. I have a BS in comp. sci. and I'm undecided at the moment as to what my end goal is this time around. I've been considering aiming for management in my field, and this thread has truly given me some direction, and some real things to hold true to if I ever achieve the status of "manager." Thanks to all for the great discussion.
For several years at performance reviews, I have tacked on the request "it would be great if the employer really worked on improving staff support networks, which would in turn leave people like me free to do what we are paid to do, and do it in a more timely manner.
I may as well of said nothing.
A couple months back a person resigned from another biz and she was talented but also an absolute stunner(drop dead gorgeous) and my manager wanted her in our organisation.
Her reply was a short but polite "No thanks, I really am looking for a place with strong support networks.". It was a real blow to him, and a wake up call. Now our managers "support", not "oversee". It has worked well, and we seldom pull late shifts now, as the jobs done.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
"Part of my job is clearing the BS that I have to deal with from my directs' path so that they can do their best work"
Indeed, that is the most important part of the job.
I've been a boss and found it wasn't worth the aggravation. The best boss I ever worked with (as opposed to for) had been in the business for 40yrs yet he could make you feel like you were telling him something new when you answered his "silly" questions. He was a cockney and tough as nails but only brought out that side when his considerable charm and patience didn't work. He's dead now and they just don't make gentlemen like that anymore.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.