Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} hire a programmer or company?

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 29 May 2012 09:58:00 -0400
Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 4:34 AM, Grant <emailgrant@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.mckinnon@gmail.com