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

[Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>]

> Everything I know about dealing with technical people is from the
> school of hard knocks :-)

And class is definitely in session!  Thanks to all for your guidance with this.

> I don't think it's something that can be taught or
> properly described adequately. But there are some obvious concepts:
>
> Programmers are essentially not too different from any other type of
> technical people, and you are already very familiar with those just by
> reading gentoo-user. All that stuff we do here wrt top-posting, html
> mail, udev and pulseaudio developers having strange ideas and
> (being perceived to be) ramming it down people's throats - all that
> stuff applies.
>
> I don't know how you personally deal with such things but whatever you
> find works is probably good enough.
>
> Techies don't like being second-guessed and told what to do when they
> are perfectly capable of doing the job properly. This is just a normal
> human reaction really and is always solved by simple communication. You
> always have to get to know people first, to get a grip on their
> personality, and then find out how to successfully interact with them.
> If you are married, consider what it took to learn how to interact with
> your wife smoothly :-)
>
>> Could you tell me really briefly what a manager *should* do?
>
> Ouch. That's another encyclopedia-length answer :-)
>
> I'll give you a short oblique answer that seems to work for me:
>
> Managers do not lead, they serve. They are not there to call the shots, get covered in glory,
> be seen as the best of the best or issue decrees. I've been fortunate to
> have had a few good managers in my working life and they all seemed to
> instinctively do the same very important thing: make it possible for me
> to do my job.
>
> They would deal with finance issues, they would help find out where new
> hardware was in the shipping process, they would be a buffer between me
> and the customer (or between me and the annoying executive). They would
> publicly cover me in glory when things worked out well and cover my ass
> when they didn't. And all too often they would clam me down when I went
> off on one of my rants. The point is, the manager took care of
> everything on the project except the part about being a programmer :-)
>
> Good managers are very good at observing. They don't impose themselves
> on the job at hand, they watch it and see where things are going great
> and where things can be improved. They are also patient and only
> try to improve one thing at a time, getting that thing right then move
> onto the next thing.
>
> My current manager is great, we're both a similar
> age (mid 40s), and we have an understanding - I'm good at my job and
> he's good at his. It took a while for both of us to recognize this and
> build that trust but I think we got it right eventually. The key thing
> was to communicate to the other guy and be honest and listen. In the
> beginning there was some "alpha-male" posturing going on and we had to
> drop that somewhat quickly :-)
>
> He's also particular in finding out what the whole team thinks about
> things, so really listens to our input.
>
> That's what I find works for me, but unlike computers I can't put it
> down in step-by-step fashion that will give a certain result.
>
>>
>> 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.
>
> Sounds to me like you already grasp the essentials :-)
>
> Good luck with the project.
>
> Oh , one last thing: despite all appearances to the contrary, most
> people out there can be trusted to do the right thing as far as they
> are able, and do want to do a good job. Don't let occasional lapses
> cloud your view of this. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, we all must
> learn to be tolerant when it happens.

Sorry for the scrolling but that stuff just can't be snipped.

Regarding proposals, schedules, roadmaps, milestones....  I've got a
list of a million changes to make to my website's front-end and
back-end.  There is a very specific way I want things to work, so
everything is broken down to a granular "task" level.  In the old days
I would just dig in and start grinding away on things, but I'm ready
to pass that duty on to a real programmer and I can't imagine that
it's productive to have him submit a proposal, set up a schedule,
generate a roadmap, and create milestones for every little thing that
needs to be done.  Can I hire one guy and give him one task at a time
and see how it goes without any of that stuff?

- Grant