No. No, I don't have to respect that on it's face value any more than they would respect me walking into a court room or a board room and telling them how to run their business without the slightest clue of legal or business matters. Quite frankly this is the arrogant attitude that needs to be changed. We all come to the table with different skills and domains of expertise, and we should be able to work together, but to do that we have to open a dialogue with each other, not simply dictate ignorantly from on high.

“By being obstinate, pig headed, willfully uncooperative, and by flaunting their ignorance, they're using a very good strategy.. often, management is smarter than you think.”

No, this type of manager just *thinks* they are being smart. Because of their skewed ethics, they believe that their workers would never tell them the truth up front, they are just lazy and exaggerate; they need to be “parented” or “motivated” to do any real work (see my comment on “trust”). In reality they've just made everyone's life (including their own) more difficult. Political manipulation and deception (“slash and burn”) can make someone look good at the cost of everyone around them, but is it sustainable? And what are the hidden costs?

Software engineers usually do what they do because they love to solve problems, but burn-out and dissatisfaction are more than cliches… a whole generation of people gave up big parts of their lives for many things that don't exist anymore by following “wheelers and dealers”… and that generation has directly (or through example) advised nearly everyone they know to get out of IT. (“It's a cost center” “You're a dime a dozen, offshore or Intern will replace you at half the cost” “There's no career path” “You have to choose between career and personal life”)

Does that sound like a healthy industry? Does it sound sustainable? Should it be emulated or admired as a management tactic?

As you point out though, that doesn't mean all managers are as motivated to
watch out for their subordinates!

I do like the point you make that there are still very bad managers out
there. I think that can't be overstated – sometimes, regardless of what we
do, we can't everyone and we can't please everyone.

Thank you again for adding to the discussion and providing such a thoughtful
response. Sometimes people come here and write personal attacks, which (as
you can imagine) I don't enjoy. I do enjoy reading well considered
dissenting opinions though. I very much appreciate it.

A manager is not someone who wants to be technical but can't. They're often lawyers, sales people, and, in general, deal makers, and it works for them. Respect that.

What's the fundamental problem? Is it that managers are stupid, and they make decisions they aren't qualified to make, and need to be handled in such a way that they some how make the same decision that a qualified manager would? Perhaps, but I'm suspicious of the conceit inherent in this. Remember that programmers and management both have a feeling of smug superiority over the other, and that country boys and city boys also both have a feeling that the other one just doesn't “get it”.

If management is unqualified and you try to handle anyone this way, they'll push back. Even a fry cook in a burger joint would if handled this way, and for good reason. They'll push back on principle, out of pride, and instinctively, as a defense against being duped.

If they're unqualified, their reaction will be one of defensiveness and suspicion:

You might tell them, “if you hurry this project, it will take longer, and there will be more defects”. Your goal is to get this message, unadulterated, into their head. Without the aid of hypnosis, this is impossible. What goes into their head will be “Joe Coder wants more time to do this; he's probably unhappy that he's working an extra hour every day but I wish he would just not complain and work two extra hours every day just for a while until this is done, so I should probably be nice but firm; however, threatening me with more bugs if he has to work sounds like extortion, which I don't mind, but allowing that kind of behavior in front of the other developers would be bad for moral, so I might have to check that, even though I really am a nice and don't like to do those things”.

… but that's exactly how a qualified manager would interpret that as well! A business person is a con man, and no one knows cons better than a con man. Or a sales man. Or a lawyer.

There's a game some players on AfterHours LPMud (Multi User Dungeon) would play… when a novice logs in and asks what to do, how to do it, and where to go, some mean older players would send them to the acid swamp where the flesh would bet burned off their bones and they would die. But most players didn't ask for help because of exactly the kind of cynicism this causes. People who make it up through the management ranks probably have learned how to make it on their own, trust their instinct, and second guess advice as well as the motive for advice.

In my own personal experience, even though they don't show it, management is usually scared as hell, unless they have one heck of a nice golden parachute. The ones with the parachute aren't the ones you're actually dealing with. Getting a middle manager to actually trust you is harder than taming a wild animal.

This article makes the assumption that managers will show their hand, as technical people tend to do. Not so. A manager won't admit understanding something merely because he does. As a technical person, it's safe to assume that management admits knowing about 10% of what they actually know. Not showing your hand is important

Suggesting that writing things out in ultra long hand was key made me laugh. Now, management, who knows what's going on even if they won't admit it, is in a position of trying to keep a straight face while you talk to them like a child. And further more, they have to work harder to keep up the illusion of taking cues from you even though it means skimming through these jumbo sized missives you're writing.

What makes you think that “deadlines written in stone” actually are? Have you seen the terms of the deal? Many are written clauses where they get paid less the later they are. Some deals are breakable after a certain point. But the “written in stone” deadlines are generally fake, concocted by management well before the real “written in stone” deadlines. And management refuses to move those. They're practice deadlines. Dressed rehearsals. Management gets to see how developers react — threaten to quit, work harder, pull out the stops, or what. They're calling your bluff when you say “we can't get that done”. They're bargaining and refusing to back down on the price. And programmers don't even suspect them of this. They take it at face value that any deadline called a hard deadline in fact is. So think back, and how many really important deadlines got missed where the software was eventually delivered and the company got paid? In other cases, especially in startups, it's unknown how much time there is other than that isn't much, or perhaps the founders just don't want their shares diluted, in which case the deadline is effectively “now, or as close as possible”. The deadline is a mix of what the company is able to entice the client with, what the client will ultimately put up with, the profit margin, and a computed ROI based on that. It is not a function of how long it takes to write software. Banish that thought from your head.

I and almost every developer I know have worked harder rather than try to explain. We've all missed the deadline by a month when management refused to move the deadline. We've all worked long days, into the night, and slept in the server room rather than be allowed to meddle even a little bit in business dealings. Some times technical people quit the job, but for the most part, they fall for the con, and the lot of them will, all in all, work much longer hours and much harder. Oh, and they do this trying to prove their intelligence to management, who pretends to not see it.

By being obstinate, pig headed, willfully uncooperative, and by flaunting their ignorance, they're using a very good strategy.

Is management actually doing the meddling needed to keep you from refactoring and writing tests? Or are they just making you eat the cost of doing it?

The premise of this little essay is that often, management is smarter than you think. There are still very bad managers. If they do keep you from doing what is necessary, including using the right tools, changing tack as needed, using the right people for specialized jobs, and so on, or if they misscompute the ROI so badly that the few deals that succeed don't pay for the ones that fail, then they're a bad manager.

-scott

I say we bring back manager discipline by public castration. That way, at least they
can't contaminate the gene pool any more.

And you're certainly correct in the way you spell it out: it will help the non-technical manager understand the issue and [hopefully] kick their ass into gear so that the problems get sorted. From that perspective I don't have an issue with it.

On the other hand, I see plenty of corporate mail pass through, by managers who are blissfully unaware of “what this thing called electricity is for again?”, in language nobody else understands. They use it as an octopus uses an ink cloud to confuse the situation so that they're allowed to get away with stuff. They have -no qualms- about using that kind of language on you and the worst of them cannot be “made to understand” that they're not communicating. Because they don't care to communicate, they only care to dominate.

You know what the best way to communicate is? This: ““We can’t complete our development in time based on these ridiculous estimates” I said bluntly. “Everyone has been behind schedule, just like we said last week. There is no way that our team is going to make their deliverables based on the current deadline. Our development and productivity is only going to get worse the more we are rushed.””

When the time comes for mass lay-offs, your managers will have no problems being as blunt and as crass as possible in dumping people out on the street. The first message was clear enough. If they don't understand that much, they shouldn't be there in the first place.

Thank you for your comment, your support – and excellent discussion on your
blog! I wasn't sure whether to reply there or here – I hope you don't mind
that I am replying here rather than on your blog.

I think we are both, in some ways, on the same page here. I don't know if
it is an effective approach either (non-technical managers managing techies)
as my primary, direct managers have tended to be technical. However, I
think we both agree on this point: it's important for technical folks to be
able to communicate with non-technical people when they come into contact
with them, particularly in managerial roles.

I took a read over your article and I think you make some great points. I
agree that some domain expertise would make a non-technical manager more
effective, and in some (many?) cases the amount of domain expertise required
to manage effectively makes a non-technical manager a particularly poor
choice.

Often though I think a multi-team initiative is likely to end up with a
fairly non-technical, but business/process savvy PM. That's the situation I
was in, and I think it would be exceptionally hard to find an engineer, let
alone manager, competent enough to make good technical decisions over all
the moving parts =)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts – I'm currently replying via email, I'll
link up your article for readers when I get home =)

Still, you're right – the worst is when people don't understand but act like
they do, and then just brush it off – not realizing the repercussions of
their decisions. I'm sure I've been guilty of it in the past as well =)

I feel your pain. I am a project manager, and if you think explaining this stuff to them is tough, try explaining things to a client. Bridging that gap has become the focus of my job at times. It is not even that people don't understand what Im saying anymore. It's more, at times, they pretend they do, and refuse to listen to our suggestions. Like, 'hey, if you do that, you are going to have problems down the road'. And they respond 'Yeah, but I like it.' Ugggh!!

Thanks for the reminder…I could always use some touch ups on my communication!