Do Developers make good Managers?

Well, turns out someone took note of my last post. (They did, however, refrain from posting a comment : ) One of my colleagues hinted that my definition of Leadership was... incomplete.

Here's the deal, I wanted to illuminate some very specific issues arising out of the concept of Leadership (with capital el) in Software Development Teams. As TDM & TRL indicated– in small groups of skilled professionals, it's hard to put one person in complete control without creating sociological issues. Added to all the other little frustrations of corporate life, these can very easily take you over the edge. Especially these, as team sociology tends to get VERY personal.

I'm guessing that adding the Leader role to teams is a direct consequence of Management's excessive need to delegate out the Manager role, aka Turning Developers into Baby-sitters. Management just seems to want a 'guy on the inside'! But, how wise is it to pick an insider (someone who's already inside the team) and switch roles?

What I'm really trying to get at is that (IMHO) Developers (REAL, HARDCORE developers) don't make good Managers... or Leaders... or... whatever you want to call that abomination of delegation! I prefer Field Manager in specific and Manager in general.

In creative collaborations, leadership is always situational. Each aspect of the problem invites the creative excellence of one or more team members. I don't believe any one person can 'drive' a sizeable effort from inception to conclusion alone. The Skill Sets (sociological as well as operational) required for these two roles are just too diverse for one person to cover! They have different Objectives; Their Interests and Incentives are usually in conflict... I mean how can you
put an individual in this situation? It's almost HARASSMENT!!!

Parting thoughts:

Managers give you a goal and let you figure out how to achieve it, monitoring along the way.

Leaders give you a direction to achieve your goals, walking along the way.

Defining Leadership

From the Oxford English Dictionary–

[to] lead (v): conduct, guide, esp by going in front; direct movements, actions or opinions of

leader (n): person followed by others

So, let's go over that one more time.

person followed by others... directing their movements, actions or opinions

The whole thing instantly conjures up images of a Seargent carrying his platoon through the tall grass or a Captain marching his company into battle. Respect, Trust,... Glory!!!
So what's wrong with that? Nothing, except that contemporary corporate culture seems to be the only place where the word Leader immediately follows the word Team. "So,” you ask, "what's wrong with a team having a leader? Most normal thing in the world!" Or so you think...!
If you look at the above analogies colsely, you will notice that neither a platoon, nor a company is a team. They are hierarchical structures built into the military chain of command!
A Team is...

... made up of peers, equals that function as equals.

Peopleware
By Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister

Even the military accepted this when they came up with the idea of special-purpose (ops) teams. Such teams comprise specialists who set aside their ranks to funnel their respective skills into attaining a single, common goal. Teams in our industry have no reason to be an exception.

For all the deference paid to the concept of leadership (a cult word in our [software] industry), it just doesn't have much place here.

Peopleware
By Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister

Managers/Leaders are never part of the team for the simple reason that they can never be peers; another point sufficiently emphasized by TDM & TRL.
Besides, we're talking creative people here. Creative people are inherently Intelligent! They don't need to be led around like some pack, and they sure as hell don't want to be!
What's even more amazing is the kind of stuff that gets passed off as Leadership qualities, things like:

• Charm (:P)
• Persuasiveness (:S)
• Getting things done (!)
• Maintaining the status quo (:o)
• Assuming authority (out of the blue!)

Parting thought: With all the talk of situational leadership, we seem to want the same people to pick up the flag in all the situations!

Wot say, Gartner?

My last bog- Specialists, Generalists & now Versatilists![http://thinkaround.blogspot.com/2005/10/specialists-generalists-now.html]- was based on the observations and predictions mad by Gartner in their Research paper titled 'The IT Professional Outlook: Where will we go from here?' [ http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=130462 ]. Besides the culmination of a strong market for Versatilists, the paper also described various changes the IT Industry is poised to face by 2010. Changes such as:

• Segregation of the industry into defined focus areas
• Migration towards the ISV/ISP model
• Growth in Relationship management and other Business facing positions
• Increase in demand for Functional experts

The predictions revolved around the percentage workforce shifts that these changes would bring. Although very captivating at first, several predictions raise more than reasonable doubts. Lets see if I can outline the important ones I identified. ;)

To start at the top, the first Prediction on the cover says that, "By 2010, the IT profession will split into four domains of expertise: technology, information, process and relationships (0.7 probability)." Strangely, page 3 sees this prediction suddenly jump 10% to 0.8! Without explanation, I might add.

The third Strategic Planning Assumption on page 3 states, “Through 2010, 30 percent of top technology performers will migrate to IT vendors and IT service providers (0.8 probability).” Does this mean we will see individuals move to vendor/service provider firms or do we expect to see corporations favor the ISV/ISP model? This article was supposed to be for the ‘IT Professional’ but this seems to be more of a corporate viewpoint. Also, I’m assuming the shift is from core Consulting, but then where do all those custom manufactured ‘Harley Davidsons’ of software that form the core IT solutions for the likes of eBay, Wal-Mart and ICICI end up?

The oddities get really interesting once the Analysis takes off. 1.0 Introduction: Setting the Stage says that, “Business skepticism toward the effectiveness of IT, the rise of IT automation, worldwide geographic labor shifts and blended service-delivery models mean that IT professionals must prove that they can understand business reality — industry, core processes, customer bases, regulatory environment, culture and constraints — and contribute real business value to their enterprises.” First of all, what the hell is the blended service-delivery model? A little consulting, some process design and maybe a product (if we can find the time)! HE! HE! But on a serious note, do IT Professionals still need to prove that they can understand business realities? Sometimes I really hate the d***heads that made it big in the early 90’s because they ended up projecting a Programmer as someone perpetually hacking away at ‘alien’ code in some maintenance project. Damn them!

Moving on; 2.1 Global Outsourcing points to the acceleration of the offshoring/cosourcing initiative in various aspects. It just got me thinking, if offshoring were to grow really big, really aggressively, India would end up facing pretty steep competition from China and Brazil!

2.2 IT Automation seems to take the cherry. Just how the f*** do you automate Software Development!! I mean, what we come up with some sort of adaptive network (ala SkyNet) that simply ‘reads’ user Requirements to come up with a solution on its own? Man, that would really sound the death knell for Commercial Software Development!

In 3.0 The IT Profession Splits Into Four Domains of Expertise, the discussion on Technology infrastructure and services predicts that, “routine coding and programming activities will gradually shift to developing economies.” Like we don’t already get enough of that! What do we expect next? That they actually set up the processes whereby, they send us the code snippets, that they want us to splice, into the specified modules, ...

The focus area listing for the Technology Infrastructure and Services domain on page 8 was refreshing. To my joy, they placed Enterprise Architecture right at the top and Web Service very last. But, I’m not really sure haw Desktop Computing ended up under Infrastructure! On the same lines, Internet Design and Web Aesthetics somehow found their way under Information Design! :

Doubts apart, one of the most absurd observations I made was that the article made no attempt whatsoever to define the sample/scope they used to deduce all these predictions! Is Gartner trying to mask a set of market hunches behind a veil of numbers, or am I just ranting out of context??!!?? :S

Specialists, Generalists & now Versatilists!

The classic debate regarding the choice between Specialists and Generalists just got bigger. In a recent Research paper titled 'The IT Professional Outlook: Where will we go from here?' [ http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=130462 ], Gartner added a new runner to the race- The Versatilist. According to Gartner, "Versatilists, in contrast, apply a depth of skill to a rich scope of situations and experiences, building new alliances, perspectives, competencies and roles." Now that's a mouthful! :)

To set a little background; Specialists build on intensified learning/training to excel in their chosen concentration within their domain, while Generalists prefer the extensive learning/experience approach where they stimulate limited exposure to various aspects or concentrations within their domain. But seriously, are these classifications water tight? No one could ever get anywhere by fine tuning themselves to just one paradigm; and I don't want to discuss what kind of impact you could make being the proverbial Jack of all Trades. The former is like finding the Answer to Life in the middle of a desert and the latter, like telling the world that you know how to light a match! The idea of Specialization was introduced at the height of the Industrial Revolution, a time when Capitalism was an accepted (and on occasion necessary) social evil. Generalization was a knee jerk reaction to over-specialization.

Now, we need to build Versatilists, Knights in Shining Armor, wielding all weapons with equal dexterity and skill! How real is the idea that a given individual could attain deep skill sets in multiple domains? According to Gartner, a Versatilist picks up greater roles and assignments as one increases the depth of current skills. But, wouldn't accepting a role outside your domain of expertise suddenly put you shallow? How much anticipation could you employ to mitigate this risk?

In my opinion, multi-faceted individuals view themselves in multiple dimensions. Each dimension represents an area of interest, a generalization; whereas the intersections of these dimensions would define concentrations, specializations. Each specialization bears at least two domain aspects; automatically multiplying the scope of roles or assignments where these intensive skills can be applied. It turns out to be very difficult to graph this idea, but it can be conceived as a series of overlapping pyramids. Each pyramid represents the skill base in a given domain, peaking at the specialization in that domain. Taller pyramids would represent an individuals majors. The overlap of pyramids would represent multiple roles applicable. So, an overlap higher in the pyramids would exhibit a deep skill (specialization) that may be applied to the benefit of roles/domains represented by both pyramids.