On Tue, 29 May 2012 09:58:00 -0400 Michael Mol <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 4:34 AM, Grant <emailgr...@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> >> I'll be getting my feet wet with this shortly. Any other tips > >>> >> regarding the management of one or more programmers working on > >>> >> various small web projects? Maybe workflow or any key > >>> >> procedures a newbie manager should follow? > >>> > > >>> > You can get away with almost anything except these two things: > >>> > > >>> > Do not micro-manage > >>> > Do not tell them how to do what they do > >>> > >>> Could you give me an example of this last one? > >> > >> - I see you are using Perl with hashrefs to do function xyz. Have > >> you considered (i.e. I would like you to) using > >> $INSERT_SOMETHING_HERE? > >> > >> - Fiddling with the roadmap. Somehow, this always ends up like the > >> homeowner overriding the architect and trying to get the roof up > >> before the walls. > >> > >> - Giving "advice" on the process such as saying how awesome a > >> concept stakeholders and product owners are in Scrum. But they use > >> ExtremeProgramming. > >> > >> - Wanting to personally review the code often. I've seen some > >> managers want to do this daily. > >> > >> - Get personally involved on their level. > >> > >> > >> All these things class as interference. Managers and owners who do > >> this have miles of justifiable reasons for doing so, but it's > >> always hogwash > >> - they interfere, plain and simple. > > > > This is really interesting to me. Is there a forum/website/book > > with more gritty, practical advice like this on managing > > programmers? These are the kinds of mistakes I will definitely make > > if someone doesn't tell me not to. > > > > Could you tell me really briefly what a manager *should* do? > > > > I think I'll try to manage a single programmer working few hours and > > see how it goes. My asking stupid questions is due to my lack of > > experience and there's only one way to fix that. > > I'd probably suggest reading The Mythical Man-Month. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month My favourite non-fiction book of all time :-) Most favourite quotes are the ones about women producing babies, and adding manpower to a late project makes it later. Oh, and this one is a classic too: Q: How do you get a project to be 3 years late? A: One day at a time. -- Alan McKinnnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
