I think management as we know it is dying.

In the fifties management studies (Drucker etc) was focused on the manager as a systems creator - who would bestride the business world fixing, innovating creating smooth clockwork systems.

Today Google's eight rules for managers is basically a cross between HR and a life coach.

Systems are now run by software - and the inevitable conclusion is that coders are the new managers.

As more and more software eats more and more of the world, there is less and less need for anyone who is not coding or talking about the code.

We may see the end of rigid hierarchies at the same time (a similar but related issue), which kind of points to two things

- code is the thing. And discussions around the code matter. And the prime examples of doing this are in FOSS - so expect more open public disagreements leading to better quality code

- Public (internal) discussion of issues means a lot of self-governance and a lot of "politics". This goes on anyway but if it is kept public it is kept honest

- management has always been about resource allocation and it is best to view senior management as financiers not executives - this might be the best split internally - senor management buying from internal self organised resources.

- Incodentslly I think a lot of the problems facing most companies today are that they cannot work out how to measure quality work during rmeote work and cannot get people to communicate if they are not all in the office. Having a big email discussion list is unwieldy - but if that is your organisation then conways law will explain how your software works. if you don't like it, it is waaay easier to adjust your email lists than move offices.

Edit: imagine Bezos' two pizza teams - each can be viewed as a independent contract supplying a business-micro-service - at a doctrinal level style guides and devleads / linting rule, and at an operational level it's which micro-services, how to combine their output, etc etc

(i need to expand this but Amazon might not be a great company to work for but the organisational design seems to point i the right direction )

You would think that keeping the team effective is the basic job of a manager. Dealing with people who don't know how to do some part of their own job is of course an unfortunate, yet inevitable reality. But this is on the level of "developer who doesn't know how to code". The article leaps into teaching the manager to do their job, but often just switching teams or companies is much easier. Plus, after you put in all the effort, not every manager can turn around and appreciate it, many will just take credit and give you nothing. So if you're going this direction, there should be some thought given to deciding whether your manager would recognize your efforts.

Also, your manager might not know:

1. How to manage people.

Maybe this is kinda snarky, but I've meet a few that didn't know basic management principles.

This is a great list. Especially the summary regarding how all of this can be a superpower.

There’s also a few other tougher scenarios.

- they might not know you’re doing parts of their job.

- they might know of problems but fail to let their manager know.

- they might not know your career aspirations.

- they might know someone is problematic on the team.

- they might not know they get in the way more than they help.

- etc

I feel like I’ve seen this posted written multiple times by different people and it feels like it’s written in a very idealized world like somebody is at a place that values good management and thinks this type of thing is what most managers are.

Something I (cynically) learned in school and then relearned in the professional world is to get good marks there’s two steps (1) remove any excuse for the person to give you a bad mark and (2) make it easy to give you the good mark, ie you should be making your manager’s life easy and your manager’s life should only become easier if they give you that promotion.

There’s a post here talking about life coaching as management and if that the case then, sure, this type of communication hits on (2), but my experience has primarily been with results focused management and being able to solve assigned problems was the key for (2).

Here's a good question to your manager: How did you feel about that?

Asking for immediate, gut feedback about something that you did, or happened to the team, gives you a read on how much managing up is needed, and/or gives your manager an opportunity to say, "I was surprised by that and I need to know more" or "That's not the direction I was shooting for, let's adjust this."

I also once explained that there was only 10 tonnes of concrete coming in the next truck and doing both #1 priorities was physically impossible, so it was time to choose. My manager, laughing, said, ok, so now you're really going to make me choose, huh?

Humanitarian logistics was easier than software because sometimes the choices were so stark and unavoidable.

As an Engineering Manager I've found two simple tools can help with almost all of the items mentioned here: brag docs and one-on-ones.

Brag docs help you, the IC remember what you did all year and your manager at review time. The keys are the right level of detail, capturing the soft stuff that doesn't get recorded anywhere else and the discipline to keep it current. If anyone else has had to spend a day or more 2x a year getting their performance reviews done, the commitment of 10-15 minutes every week or so is an easy sell.

If your manager hasn't butchered your 1:1s, turning them into status updates (and you actually have them scheduled) many of the other points listed are great topics for discussion. I love it when someone on my team asks a specific question about promotions or upcoming work opportunities or something we both experienced. I rarely have the answer but always get it and follow up. It makes me feel good to be helping the individual (and the team) and we're actively building a relationship on respect and caring.

I don't see these activities as the typically negative "managing up". Taking active responsibility for yourself and your team is a good strategy. I look for motives when people act, and these all tell me the person cares about themselves, about other and wants everyone to get better.

At a typical startup they might not know much of anything. Except someone else in management who is a personal friend.

Not only does this article make it your job teach the manager how to do their job, the article does not admit a cardinal truth: the manager unnecessarily eats into the value that you produce and should therefore be eaten in turn. If you can manage up, you can eliminate the manager, and gain your total share of the value production.

Now THAT is a superpower.

(2021). Other posts from the author on related topics (all are helpful): https://jvns.ca/#career---work

If your boss comes from a place with high sycophancy like Infosys, TCS, IBM or a similar, don't try this.

Hmm, so what is the manager's job then?

I feel like this list may be applied to parenting, teams in school, etc. Good communication is a big part of successful relationships and teams/groups.

If you do this, go ask your manager for a raise for doing another role on top of your current one. Don't give away your superpowers for free.

OT but I am making a year-end resolution to skim everything Julia and Patrick have written on their site, then make a list of deep-dive pieces.

The amount of useful content these two crank out is mind-boggling. They hold down day-jobs and write more useful stuff than 98.3413% of writers out there!

I would love to see a fire-side chat on how their process works.

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Man, whenever I read this woman's stuff, I wish everyone could be like this.

She really "gets" it. Technical whiz, and knows how to work with people.

This just reaffirms my belief after a decade in industry that middle management is useless. I wish businesses could move to a more decentralized form. You just don’t need these people if they can’t help you in you current or future job.

All managers should know the below. It’s proof the job is not effective.

> Here are the facts your manager might not know about you and your team that we’ll cover in this post:

>What’s slowing the team down

>Exactly what individual people on the team are working on

>Where the technical debt is

>How to help you get better at your job

>What your goals are

>What issues they should be escalating

>What extra work you’re doing

How compensation/promotions work at the company

Edit: It’s by Julia Evans too. Awesome.

Non technical managers are not needed. They get in the way and there is rarely any benefit from having them in a technical team.

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tl;dr; do your manager's job also because they don't have a clue and it's up to you to clue them in.

There's also a pretty conclusion where if you suck up and do your manager's job, you get the superpower of being appreciated by your manager, it makes you more valuable than the dumb engineers that just do their job.