Comment by osigurdson
2 years ago
The problem with management roles today is they are watered down to the point of being basically pointless. Product people determine the shape of things and priorities. Tech leads determine how things should be done.
The manager is supposed to shepherd career growth and decide how much people should get paid. In my view this is a really part time job at best.
I think we need to go back to coupling more of these roles together, similar to what would happen in a startup. A strong leader should be able to fill product, tech lead and management roles.
Like a team ceo. I strongly believe this person should be responsible for a teams success or failure. Grant this person the right to hire/fire members of various disciplines. Tell this person to chase certain revenue numbers or another mission. Give this person the bonus money/product dividends to share with the team. I believe all this will drive this person to really build a team, instead of just managing it.
But demote them to smaller projects when they fail to deliver. And allow team members to apply to work for a different team if they trust the team ceo there more. Like an internal startup environment but teams. This is how I would try relentlessly to structure my company.
This should only be the case if the _team_ can fire a failing manager.
Maybe that is the other approach. No manager, no product person and no project manager, just a team that is fully responsible for outcomes.
The problem is that it’s 10x harder to find someone who’s good at two things vs two people who are good at one thing.