I am specifically talking about mid level managers who Supervise your day to day operations. Isn’t that role irrelevant in today's era of consulting when most of people are expert in their fields and knows what they are supposed to do. I have seen that the consulting clients hire scrum masters as well as project managers, do you not think that your overall product would be better off with additional consultants rather than having a high cost manager? This question is for consulting clients as well, do you really need a project manager when you hire a consulting firm to do certain jobs?
Good managers and PMs are crucial for top performing teams; they will act as gate keepers, ensuring the team is focussed on the right priorities, and filter out the noise. If the managers/PMs are technical, even better, as they will be able to translate the business needs onto functional requirements. Having an army of consultants with no leadership sounds like a shit show for me. The chances of these people wonder around like headless chickens working on low priority items is extremely high.
Isn't deciding priorities are the job of clients with scrum masters? I can understand the leadership requirement at organization level but that example of yours is irrelevant. Who hires headless chickens in consulting? I bet most of them are highly skilled and well trained.
@gBLo54 your POV is around consultancy. For product teams, managers make or break stuff. Any product that requires multiple teams to collaborate will go no where without good managers.
Someone has to report your TC to the higher ups. Google “i have people skills office space”
I am joking since years that we should replace managers in middle management with homeless people. To me there is no benefit in having them. You can distribute their power in a team and give the developers more autonomy.
Apart from homeless part, couldn't have agreed more. With autonomy they'll have an additional sense of responsibility, which will make their life much more meaningful.
Managers/supervisor s work can be easily automated
True but why not MBBs working with these firms for almost decades now suggesting these options in their operation Optimisation strategy ? There must be some link which we are missing.
Google once tried to function without managers. Rest is history...
Can i have that study link please ?
https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-on-management but there are others, just google it
You have the wrong idea. As a manager, my job is to not just ensure projects hit their goals but also: Hire the right people, mentor people, grow engineers, and make sure that my team understands our business goals. I also shield my team from corporate BS so they can get their work done. We don’t “supervise”. I hire top talent that is independent and does not need me babysitting them all day. There is a great bit about consultants by Steve Jobs. Bottom line is that they are driven by billable hours not by the long term success of the people or the product. Managers are not like consultants. I personally find professional scrum masters totally useless and a waste of money. A self-sufficient team can manage itself and should not need a glorified babysitter.
Well if i break down your claims one by one then there would be nothing left in your bucket apart from shielding your team from corporate bs which in my point of view, is by product of hierarchy and shouldn't have been there at all. Every company has its own hiring teams and most of the times, your team members interview new candidates so can't really give you any credit for that. Honesty did you ever asked any engineer whether your "mentorship" helped them or they needed it at all the first place ? And lastly isn't explaining business goals are the job of leadership such as directors who gets involved during the bidding phase? Why a mid level managers is needed here and it certainly shouldn't be a permanent role with team. Managers can't do babysitting either Because they don't know shit. Jokes apart, scrum masters can also be moved out with system process and 100% agreed that they are part of the same problem. If you read my question carefully i am questioning why consulting clients hire both? Lastly i am very well aware of Steve Jobs position over consulting , Please don't undermine people's exposure with tech history :). Yup one quality which is leading the team to the end goal is something i can not counter so yes that stands out as the most important asset of a manager.
Ehhh “every company has its own hiring team”. You are dead wrong on this. I go through resumes, I work with recruiting teams and I lead the loops as well as make a final call based on team’s feedback on whether this person is a good fit or not. Keep dreaming if you think SDMs at Amazon don’t do that. In regards to mentorship, I’m a very technical manager and yes I have helped many of my engineers move up as well as move to teams that aligned with their goals. I actually got good feedback on it (I like to follow up after a few months and get data). Are there too many layers of management sometimes? Yes. Have I found my director to be pointless in the past? Yes. For the record, you didn’t as you said “break down my claims one by one”. These are just your opinions and what you’ve seen in whatever places you worked at. To be honest I found scrummasters in the past to be little bureaucrats that are more focused on doing what the scrum book said or whatever bullshit certification they are trying to get rather than what’s good for customers and the team.
☝🏻yes.. and occasionally crack the whip.. some of these kids come in at 10am and leave at 4pm, then complain deadlines are too aggressive. 😤
Agreed but can be enforced by swipe timings, alot of companies already doing that.
Because being an technically skilled and managing/delivering a successful project/product are 2 totally separate skills. The biggest reason (IMHO) why clients pay for experienced middle manager is sense red flags early, not sensing those can be very very expensive. Something the clients usually struggle with internally. Ofcourse this assumes that middle management is reasonably competent
Someone has to crack the whip.
So fundamentally you believe in the philosophy of hierarchy. Anyways i understand your point of view. But just to get your detailed perspective can you answer this question as well? Would you like to be supervised through out your career?