Well, that was a forwarded e-mail gone
wrong. Just ignore my inability to properly replace the TO field with the
appropriate e-mail address. L From: WATSON, BEN Byron, I thought you might find this a good
read. It’s an e-mail from Joe Richards (author of the Active
Directory O’Reilly book). He’s talking about why a tech lead
(architect here at AppSig) should definitely be a separate role from an actual
manager. Much like I would rather hit the role of
an architect before I would like to begin thinking of moving into any
managerial role. ~Ben Interesting, I have a pretty different
view on tech lead. The things you mention (handing out tasks, interfacing with upper management,
discipline, etc...) are out and out
managerial tasks from my viewpoint and if I had a manager and a tech lead, I
wouldn't take any of that from the tech lead. I consider tech lead as senior
techy, the guy whom you go to when you are out of ideas on what to do next to
solve a technical problem. The manager is you go to for interfacing with
anyone outside of the group, personnel issues and getting your
tasks. I think the manager and the tech lead need to work very
closely but that is mostly to keep the manager in a good place,
informed, and pointed in the right direction such that managerial
decisions don't adversely impact the technical aspects of the work too much as
well as letting the manager know what the technical priorities are from the
tech leads viewpoint and so the manager can tell the tech lead what the real
priorities are as they are decided by the manager. For instance if going into a
meeting with a "customer"[1] the tech lead feeds the manager with as
much knowledge as necessary so the manager isn't completely at a loss in the
meeting and as things dive into tech, if they do, the tech lead is either there
(if it is known ahead of time it will get deep) or available via phone to
help. Tech and managerial pieces do not normally
fit together well, very different skill sets and strengths needed to do one or
the other well. Very few people, IMO, can be good at tech and good at
managerial. Unfortunately many companies do not see this and in order for
someone to move up through the ranks they must assume managerial duties when in
fact the company should have a managerial track and a technical track for the
folks to follow so they can stick with the areas in which they have the
greatest strength. Hopefully it is getting more and more obvious to companies
that trying to make people spend all of the their time trying to
improve on their weaknesses versus utilizing their strengths is a losing
proposition. To put it another way, if someone is an amazing techy and a
horrible manager, you don't force them to spend their time trying to be a
mediocre manager. That is the person that everyone will point at and say they
are a sucky manager. joe [1] Define as you wish, different groups
have different customers. IT has the business, the business could have another
aspect of the business or external, etc. -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm |
- RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques Ken Schaefer
- Re: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques Al Mulnick
- Re: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques Mudha Godasa
- Re: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques Mudha Godasa
- RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques joe
- RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques Brian Desmond
- Re: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques Al Mulnick
- Re: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques Laura E. Hunter
- RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques neil.ruston
- RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques WATSON, BEN
- RE: [ActiveDir] OT: Interview Techniques WATSON, BEN