avatarJason Knight

Summarize

Project Managers Do Us All A Favor And MANAGE!

Teach, Listen, SUPPORT!

What I want is those men to have someone to look up to, someone they know will be there to pick them up if they fall. I’ve got eight weeks to teach these idiots what it took you twenty years to learn on the streets.

One of the biggest problems I’ve seen in the decade and some change I’ve been freelance consulting accessibility and efficiency is an utter, total, and complete lack of leadership skills amongs so-called “senior” developers and “project managers”. You would think the title “project manager” might imply some need to… I dunno… MANAGE? But no.

I’ve lost count of the number of alleged “managers” I’ve dealt with who I’ve had to tell higher ups (owners, presidents, board members) to fire, demote, or move laterally because they aren’t managing anything more than their own prick. They spend three hours a day in meetings, three hours a day organizing for the next meeting, and the rest of their day at work playing crappy shovelware indie mobile games or spanking their crank to PornHub.

In a lot of ways many of the tools, technologies, and legitimate techniques end up at fault. Well maybe not at fault, but as a means of enablement.

Take AGILE and SCRUM… completely useful and legitimate techniques to aid in managing and planning products. BUT, so many people devoid of leadership skills use them as crutches to cover up for laziness and ignorance; sick-buzzword bullshit bingo to make their bosses think they know what they’re talking about; and justification for even more meetings that exist not to make the product better, resolve issues, and help the people doing the work. No, they use the meetings for one reason and one reason only, to assert their “dominance” and to lord a “superiority” their lack of skills leave them unentitled to.

Version Control like Git can also take a measure of the blame.

Again, another completely legitimate and useful (for most people, I recognize my own shortcomings here) tool that a lot of alleged “managers” use so they can avoid doing their job. In fact that abuse / mis-use is part of why I’m not particularly “git-friendly”.

They hope that junior’s commits are fine, never do reviews of any of it, if they do review and leave comments they don’t follow up to make sure they’re followed through.

Overreliance on tools, frameworks, and the like are the mark of a bad manager. Period. Especially if they aren’t leveraging all the things those tools provide to let you… manage!

It’s why Git can be amazeballs when you have a benevolent dictator like Linus Torvalds riding herd and having final say; and why it can go bits up face down when you have so-called managers who never review a single damned commit! Who do not make sure tickets are followed up and resolved. Who use it as a crutch to avoid having to do the job of an actual manager.

The difference Between Leaders And Bosses

You really see this in nearly every work environment.

There is a distinct difference between the two. A boss barks orders without explanation, spends no time actually supervising, aiding, or even doing any real work. I have to thank Amy Blankenship for this little gem in a recent reply she made to another of my articles:

[snip] they see their job as telling devs what goes in the product and yelling at them to build it faster.

That’s a very astute observation that anyone who’s worked at any level below “management” can relate to. That’s literally what’s wrong with “Bosses”

In that way alongside all the things bosses don’t do, it leads to a lack of loyalty… then such bosses wonder why they keep having people leave, “quietly quit” and so forth.

But let’s talk about what an actual leader does! It all goes back to something Patton once said about loyalty:

There’s a great deal of talk about loyalty from the bottom to the top. Loyalty from the top down is even more necessary and is less prevalent. One of the most frequently noted characteristics of great men who have remained great is loyalty to their subordinates. — General George S. Patton Jr.

It is thus some of the most common defining behaviors of actual leaders are:

  1. Creating an environment in which people aren’t afraid to report mistakes, or voice objections. Mistakes happen, help your people LEARN FROM THEM! And don’t go nuts insta-firing for the simplest of errors! It happens. A person who made a mistake is less likely to repeat it than a new hire!
  2. Passing on their knowledge and skills to those working below them. This is oft best done by being there “in the trenches” with the workers doing the same work along side them.
  3. Not asking them to do anything they wouldn’t — and AREN’T — doing themselves.
  4. Supervising and verifying the activity in real time. This means going around the office and HELPING at every task. It means reviewing ALL the work that’s going on constantly.
  5. Getting off their arse and actually helping get the job done instead of barking orders and locking themselves in their office to play “Stardew Valley” all day when they aren’t sucking off upper management.

In a lot of ways we can learn from the military. Take drill instructors. DI’s get a bad rap; popular media and “military is evil” fear-mongering not helping matters.

Sure, they bark orders and push to break people down, but that’s to build them back up stronger. They are harsh because it’s a matter of life and death. They have weeks to teach people to survive in situations that break down rational thought. To instill instincts through training that gives their charges a chance — no matter how slim — to make it back alive and sane in situations that would completely break the mind of “civvie pukes”.

That’s not what I’m talking about here.

What I’m referring to is something most of the “camp couch” crowd — and even many FOBbits — don’t think of, don’t notice, and don’t understand. A DI doesn’t ask their charges to do anything they themselves have not been through. When a DI sends his charges out into the field in harsh weather, do they retreat to the duty hut and put their feet up next to a kerosene heater? No, they are right out there in the weather with them. When sent on long marches do they kick back and watch from the back of a jeep? (seriously, f*** the officers in “First Avenger”) No! They are right there not just marching alongside, they’re going up and down the lines to the point that if you think about it, they’re covering more distance than their charges!

Hell, go into their room and look around. Clean, perfect, everything they expect their charges to learn to do in terms of discipline right down to the corners on their bedsheets. They live the life and do everything they can to teach it.

THAT IS LEADERSHIP!

Lead by example. Lead by doing the work. Lead by getting right down in there with the people who do the REAL work. Lead by reviewing and teaching.

LEAD!!!

Management is no different. I’m sick of going into client’s workplaces where they have “project managers” who do everything except actually show leadership! Who don’t write any of the code for the project; don’t do a single review of any code written by others; don’t create architectural overviews, plans, or other structuring; don’t make sure that their underlings have everything needed to even do the job; and refuse to teach what they know! (see “rockstar developers” who try to maintain their L33T status by making sure nobody else even understands their code!)

Or worse, don’t know anything at all because they’re decades out of touch and just blindly following the latest hot trends and sick buzzwords.

’Cause to be brutally frank if you’re not doing any of that, just what the blue blazes do you think you’re managing?

A Word To Upper Management / Owners

Be on the lookout for the warning signs. A bad manager, or failing to lead on your own part? Be it added expense, delays, or outright going belly up it’s all things that can be avoided if you would just learn the difference between leading and bossing. If the people you have as “managers” aren’t actually doing real work — and no, meetings, generating meaningless statistics to fabricate infographics riddled with lies, and sucking up to you is not “real work” — it might be time for a change in management.

“Tools” won’t make up for that. “frameworks” won’t make up for that. Wishful thinking and blindly believing the popularist tripe printed in the trades or blindly parroted on Reddit won’t make up for that! Most of the sleazy, predatory, feel good nonsense peddled by frauds cannot make up for a lack of leadership and management skills.

No matter how much the fanboys, quacks, and bunko peddlers tell you otherwise. There is no magical panacea other than putting in the time and effort.

There’s a reason it’s called “work”, and not “Liver Lips McGrowl’s Happy Happy Fun-Time Jamboree!” Just because you “made it” into “management” doesn’t magically change that or mean you can kick your feet up in your private office, pretending things will somehow manage themselves!

Project Management
Leadership
Bosses And Employees
Web Development
Business
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