I too, have been in this position (in 1999, with a department re-org, I was made a "manager"). The advice below from Peter agrees with the one biggest thing I wanted to say on the topic. The only thing I'd add to it is, work with the people (staff), **in person**, a LOT. Meet with them one on one on a regular basis. Get caught up regarding their problems, issues, requests. Do not manage via email. A trap I found myself getting into at one point was "hiding in my office", and then digging around doing technical things anyway and avoiding the PEOPLE STUFF, which is what you do now, 100%.
Making technical people managers is a difficult and challenging path. Best of luck! In a bizarre twist of fate, 5 years later after our re-org, when I had finally gotten to be GOOD at being a manager, our department was outsourced, and I ended up being a technical person again for a massive research department. It's kind of like Star Trek IV (Voyage home), when Admiral Kirk gets demoted back to Captain . I'm not unhappy. :) :) From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Honomichl Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 9:38 AM To: Peter Grace Cc: LOPSA Discuss Subject: Re: [lopsa-discuss] Graduating to management and the pains thereof While I am by no means a full on DevOps guy, I thought the book The Phoenix Project brought some interesting thoughts to the table. As somebody who has been through this type of transition, I felt that the most challenging part was disconnecting myself from the day-to-day. We always say "when I get there, I can still be one of the guys. I have the technical chops. I can help out." While this is true, it took me a long time to learn a) my company no longer payed me to do the day-to-day stuff and b) you do a disservice to your team if your not transitioning your knowledge to them so they can do it. Past that, I focus on being a leader, not a manager (I believe that there is a distinct difference).
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
