Managers Should Be Developers

(From EveryoneShouldBeaDeveloper): Management is best made up of people who have a strong yearning to write software, but are (maybe temporarily) assuming other roles. Team leads should be the strongest developers in the group, and you should work hard to ensure that they get to do as much real development (and as little administrative overhead) as possible.

I think that different skills are required for being a good manager. I agree, in principle, that it's easier if you have a manager who understands some of the technical issues, but I think that too often someone who's a great developer is "promoted" into management, when they may have no people skills whatsoever. -- AlanFrancis

This is understandable, but I think not everywhere applicable. One of the principles that seems especially valid to me in ExtremeProgramming is to work *with* people's instincts - to cut "along the grain", as it were. A good, non-technical project manager, who enjoys management, can be a breath of fresh air in a project. If the project manager really wishes she were coding, it will take discipline, time, and stress management to cut against that grain and ensure that management tasks are well taken care of. ExtremeProgramming attempts to make this more tolerable by offloading many traditional management tasks onto the client and the methodology itself, but I still wonder if a manager who wishes she were a developer is the lowest-energy state of every system. -- DavidSaff

One of the principles that seems especially valid to me in ExtremeProgramming is to work *with* people's instincts - to cut "along the grain", as it were.

Important points about project management and well made, thanks.

Taking the title of this page in its broadest sense though, if we are indeed to be "extreme" and thus work *with* people's instincts then I think that it is fair to report that most people's instincts, and therefore most managers' instincts, are to stay as well clear from development or programming as they can. It might be interesting to summarize why on Wiki sometime.

BillGates is an obvious and important exception. But the majority of managers are nowhere near wanting to program. They sure want to control software development projects that they're paying for though. What does XP's cutting along the grain imply for the majority of people who would prefer almost anything in life than to program?

-- RichardDrake

RefactorMe: should merge with ManagersDontCode