{"id":11245,"date":"2012-12-21T02:53:53","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T09:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=11245"},"modified":"2012-12-21T13:28:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T20:28:14","slug":"could-we-make-managing-programmers-a-little-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=11245","title":{"rendered":"Could we make managing programmers a little easier?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Programming managers have typically had years of training in programming\u2026<\/p>\n

And no training in management.<\/p>\n

I’ve been taking a fascinating census of programming managers this fall that has shown me just how true that is. As I talk about our book Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams<\/em><\/a> to groups that include software development managers, I start by asking:<\/p>\n

“Stand up if you are now or have ever been a manager of programmers and programmer teams.”<\/p>\n

I continue:
\n“Stay standing if you have ever received management training
\n– let’s say a day or more of training –
\nwhether from your company or in college or on your own.<\/p>\n

Almost to an audience, half of managers sit down! Half of programming managers have never had a single day of management training in their careers!<\/p>\n

To the people still\u00a0standing, I ask:
\n“Stay standing if you got any of that training before you first became a manager.”<\/p>\n

The result:
\nOf all the programming managers I talk to, only 8-15 percent have received any<\/em> management training before becoming a manager.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Almost all the training for managing programmers that exists. There are only two others that are missing from this picture!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Equally telling: there are a ton of books on project management. In fact, there are scores of books on each different flavor of project management.<\/p>\n

But the number of books on managing programmers won’t use up the fingers on both hands. (It’s one of the reasons that Mickey and I wrote Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Isn’t it odd?:
\n* how long we expect you to have studied the art of programming before we hire you to be a programmer?\u00a0 languages, libraries, frameworks, tools, techniques, …?
\n* the growing expectation that not only have you studied to be a project manager, but you’ve become certified to do so?
\n* how little we expect you to have studied the art of managing before we tap you to become a manager?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Programming managers have typically had years of training in programming\u2026 And no training in management. I’ve been taking a fascinating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1541,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,27,849,850,899,939],"tags":[260,1179,84,1169,1176,171],"class_list":["post-11245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-training-certification","category-team-leadership","category-organizational-leadership","category-career-2","category-change-2","tag-books","tag-certification","tag-management","tag-managing-the-unmanageable","tag-programming","tag-training"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11245"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11249,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11245\/revisions\/11249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}