Moving into management
Well, it is official now, I have been promoted to manager for our new internet division. On one hand I’ll miss moving out of coding but I look forward to making an environment that I always wanted to work in.
We are already starting to get the tools that I’ve asked for, the environments set up the way we would like it and so on. So far so good. I know we have an aggressive schedule for all the work we have coming for the rest of the year, and I still have to build the team (there are only 3 of us at the moment) but overall I’m looking forward to it.
Why in the world would I go into management?
For many years I’ve fought the uphill battles of ‘doing it right’ and getting tools and processes either in place or removed (in the case of too much process) with varying degrees of success. Not that I was always right, but when I fought for something it was usually because the team I was on wanted something done but most people don’t like engaging in those kinds of things so I usually ended up doing it. Well now I have more perceived authority since I am officially the manager instead of just another developer making noise.
Will I be successful? Who knows, but I have a good boss that trusts me and my former boss trusted me and recommended me for this so that is a good start. The way I see it now, I will sink or swim on my own merit and I can alleviate a lot of potential disasters from occurring by not having to deal with a middle manager that doesn’t know what it is that developers do.
With a little bit of luck, some good negotiations and sticking to my principles I hope to accomplish some good stuff. We shall see…
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[...] As I am now in a management position, I’ve been looking lately at various books, blogs, etc. on the subject. So far I have come across a few blogs like Karsten Voges The Ten Commandments for Managers and then there is the good series Russ Olsen has been writing for the past couple of weeks. From perfect starting post titled Building a software team to hiring the wrong person to Five ways to communicate better, he has some good stuff. [...]