Making the Move into Management
Mac Newbold
Vivint
OpenWest - May 9, 2014
Managers
Game Plan
Do you want to be a manager?
What to expect
Great engineer != Great manager
Preparing for management
Leadership
Succeeding in management
What Do I Know?
I make no claims of being an expert
I've done a few things
I've seen a lot of management styles
Let's make work a happier place
Blame the people who accepted the talk
So you want to be a manager?
Good Things
Promotion
Compensation?
Career advancement
Not-So-Good Things
Higher expectations
More risk?
Always on-call?
Longer hours?
Maybe Good Things
More responsibility
Different duties
Less coding, more coaching
Less time working alone, more collaborating
More meetings
More "variety"
Manager Roles
Depending on the {company, department, team},
Managers may have a wide variety of responsibilities
Some are usually more enjoyable than others
Product Manager
Project Manager
Development Manager
See "Care and Feeding of Modern Developers"
For reals, see "The Mythical Man Month"
Guiding technical decisions, architecture, standards
Managing productivity
Coaching, mentoring, training
Other Manager Duties
HR stuff
Therapist
Prognosticator
Great Engineer != Great Manager
Few places are silly enough to assume
that their best practitioners
will be the best managers of practitioners
Geek managers definitely have something that
many managers never achieve:
deep technical understanding
Geek skills != Manager skills
However, there are a lot of things you can do
to be both a great engineer and a great manager
Delegating
Managing Different Experts
Communication
Don't speak geek to people who don't grok it
Be the translator
Keep it simple - they want results, not a novel
Problem Solver
Managing People
Don't be That Guy
Don't Do It For Them
You're not the coder now, let them do it
If necessary, teach first, then leave it to them
Preparing for Management
1. Perform well at your current job
2. Identify and study the "other skills"
3. Show leadership where possible
4. Take up juggling
Leading Without Authority
Sometimes we need to exercise Leadership,
without being given any actual Authority
Sometimes called "managing up", or
leading from the side
Biggest difference: can't pull rank,
so you have to use other methods
The key skills this exercises seem to be:
Communication/Persuasion
Fostering Mutual Respect
See "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
Identifying Management Opportunities
Depending on your current employment,
there may or may not be good opportunities
that you can work toward
You may need to look outside the company
in order to move into a management role
Talk with your boss about your career goals,
and you may be surprised with opportunities
It's usually easier to be promoted within
than getting hired into your first manager role
Practice Outside of Work
Don't neglect other opportunities to practice management skills
You may find them in many places:
Volunteer organizations
Church or Religious group
Geek Community
Sports or other Leagues
Sometimes these are even better practice than work:
leading unpaid volunteers is tricky, because they can
always walk away any time with often no consequences
Try it at home too - your family/roommates might appreciate it
Succeeding in Management
If you're already a manager, I think the priorities are:
#1 Communication
#2 Leading execution
#3 Coaching/Mentoring
You _will_ run into difficult situations
You _will_ do things that you later wish you had done differently
Don't worry - relax and communicate, and things will work out.
Be a Good Manager
Know Your Team
Do Unto Others
Take-aways
Management is a fun and challenging opportunity
Having a geek skill set prior to management
can be a great strength
Great Engineers can be Great Managers,
but there are non-engineering skills you'll want to develop
If you want to be a manager, now or someday,
there are some simple things you can do to prepare
If you want to be a successful manager,
just keep putting effort into it
Questions?
Thanks for Coming
Keep in touch?
Vivint is hiring... JS, PHP (C#?)
mac@macnewbold.com
freenode IRC #uphpu / #utah
@macnewbold
slides.com/macnewbold
Reviews/feedback encouraged:
Making the Move to Management
By Mac Newbold
Making the Move to Management
Many developers have wondered where their career path might lead once they have reached the pinnacle of coding expertise in their sphere of influence at work. For almost everyone, it seems that sooner or later it leads to some kind of management. Trading your best coder’s compiler and editor for a meeting schedule and notebook might seem like a poor choice, but there are patterns that can influence how successful a geek-turned-manager might be.
