January 10, 2013 at 11:54Who is the manager?
I read the publication of 13 reasons not to be a manager with comments, and something boiled inside, so much so that I decided to write my first post on Habr. I understand that the majority of Khabrovsk residents are developers, engineers, many of whom have become project managers, team leaders, I do not want to offend anyone, but still I will post my thoughts.
It is amazing that a person worked for 10 years as an IT manager, and he does not have instructions and documentation, what should a manager do during the day. So maybe the textbook "Fundamentals of Management" at least worth reading. In general, management is a separate scientific specialty ... Thousands of scientific specialists work in it, come up with some management theory, publish books, conduct research, develop the same agile methods (scrum and others). Maybe there should look for instructions? Oh yes, there’s one little water written there, but we have real projects here, and the employees are somehow wrong, they don’t fit into any management theory.
Surprisingly, it turns out that programmers are doing useful work - they write code, do debugging, test, learn new technologies, and the manager runs around all day, racks up mail, and attends useless meetings. What should he learn new running technologies? No, for starters it’s enough to learn 3 main functions of a manager:
- organization and planning
- motivation
- control.
It turns out that for each of these functions there are a number of specific applied methods and approaches that can be used in control. Don't like rushing back and forth? So it may be better to plan and improve the organization of work. Made a plan, but it does not work? Well, the developer program does not start the first time, try to “debug”. Tired of picking up mail every day? So maybe your organization has problems with communication channels? Raise this problem and propose a solution. Can't do anything because innovation in governance is blocked by senior management? Turn to even higher management, fight bureaucracy, fight the system if the organization in which you work at least means something to you.
It turns out that if you became a manager, then everyone bothers you with work, they always go about their problems ... And the working day is not normal, and it’s hard to focus, and there’s more responsibility, but there’s a dead end ahead. But you didn’t know that the work of a manager is, first of all, work with people? After all, what is organization in the modern sense - it is primarily people, each of whom has his own goals and his own needs. Gone are the days of the “Fayol organization,” where man was a simple cog in the system. Managing a modern employee is much more difficult, but start at least with the Maslow pyramid, study the needs of your subordinates. It is believed that a manager can effectively manage 7 employees, maybe you should use this rule?
And imagine if a crisis happens in an organization. For example, the main customer leaves, financing is unstable or ceases altogether, the external environment is very variable and it is extremely difficult to adapt to it. What tools will you use in this case? How now to organize the work of subordinates? Have you tried to motivate people if they have a delay in wages for a couple of months? Here we come to another important aspect of organization management - a systematic approach to management, the development of the organization and the acquisition of qualities by the organization that will help it quickly change and adapt to the external environment. And this is by no means the task of senior management, but the immediate task of each manager at each level of management.
I have nothing against the fact that engineers become managers, but I think that the company should have a systematic approach to management, when at each level of management there is professionalism and a desire to achieve their own goals together with the goals of the organization.
I also want to say, having been engaged in IT management for more than 5 years, I believe that IT makes a huge contribution to the theory and practice of management. Agile methods, in my opinion, are very progressive practices of both development and management, and can be used in other sectors of the economy. Modern IT companies often act as examples of successful socially oriented companies, about which there have been many publications on Habré, so the future is ours!
It is amazing that a person worked for 10 years as an IT manager, and he does not have instructions and documentation, what should a manager do during the day. So maybe the textbook "Fundamentals of Management" at least worth reading. In general, management is a separate scientific specialty ... Thousands of scientific specialists work in it, come up with some management theory, publish books, conduct research, develop the same agile methods (scrum and others). Maybe there should look for instructions? Oh yes, there’s one little water written there, but we have real projects here, and the employees are somehow wrong, they don’t fit into any management theory.
Surprisingly, it turns out that programmers are doing useful work - they write code, do debugging, test, learn new technologies, and the manager runs around all day, racks up mail, and attends useless meetings. What should he learn new running technologies? No, for starters it’s enough to learn 3 main functions of a manager:
- organization and planning
- motivation
- control.
It turns out that for each of these functions there are a number of specific applied methods and approaches that can be used in control. Don't like rushing back and forth? So it may be better to plan and improve the organization of work. Made a plan, but it does not work? Well, the developer program does not start the first time, try to “debug”. Tired of picking up mail every day? So maybe your organization has problems with communication channels? Raise this problem and propose a solution. Can't do anything because innovation in governance is blocked by senior management? Turn to even higher management, fight bureaucracy, fight the system if the organization in which you work at least means something to you.
It turns out that if you became a manager, then everyone bothers you with work, they always go about their problems ... And the working day is not normal, and it’s hard to focus, and there’s more responsibility, but there’s a dead end ahead. But you didn’t know that the work of a manager is, first of all, work with people? After all, what is organization in the modern sense - it is primarily people, each of whom has his own goals and his own needs. Gone are the days of the “Fayol organization,” where man was a simple cog in the system. Managing a modern employee is much more difficult, but start at least with the Maslow pyramid, study the needs of your subordinates. It is believed that a manager can effectively manage 7 employees, maybe you should use this rule?
And imagine if a crisis happens in an organization. For example, the main customer leaves, financing is unstable or ceases altogether, the external environment is very variable and it is extremely difficult to adapt to it. What tools will you use in this case? How now to organize the work of subordinates? Have you tried to motivate people if they have a delay in wages for a couple of months? Here we come to another important aspect of organization management - a systematic approach to management, the development of the organization and the acquisition of qualities by the organization that will help it quickly change and adapt to the external environment. And this is by no means the task of senior management, but the immediate task of each manager at each level of management.
I have nothing against the fact that engineers become managers, but I think that the company should have a systematic approach to management, when at each level of management there is professionalism and a desire to achieve their own goals together with the goals of the organization.
I also want to say, having been engaged in IT management for more than 5 years, I believe that IT makes a huge contribution to the theory and practice of management. Agile methods, in my opinion, are very progressive practices of both development and management, and can be used in other sectors of the economy. Modern IT companies often act as examples of successful socially oriented companies, about which there have been many publications on Habré, so the future is ours!