

Ask HN: Are managers necessary? - lovskogen

I'm wondering if some mid-sized companies (20+, larger ones too) works without the manager as a single role? What are your thoughts on this? Could a model with developers and designers doing planning amongst each other work? Or would it be to distracting to add a 'managing' task to the workflow?
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smiler
I work in a small consultancy / contracting place. For a lot of projects I
have to write the proposal, attend pre-spec meetings, come up with the
costings, get the purchase order, deal with all the 'commercial issues',
invoicing etc

Sometimes it's ok, but I would prefer if we had a dedicated person to doing
that all the time.

Managers are definitely useful for paperwork and dealing with commercial /
political situations :)

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exline
I agree. I like having a technical lead dealing with all aspects technical and
a manager dealing with paperwork, burn rates, BS customer issues, politics,
etc. This frees up the technical lead to do the required technical work.

The larger the company the greater the need from what I have experienced.
Technically its not required, but I'd rather not be dealing with those
aspects. I forgot where I read it, but I've heard the manager role being
described as a sh*t umbrella. Its there to keep everyone below him/her clean
so they can focus on their work.

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Alex63
In a perfect world, there would be no need for managers. Everyone would come
together as a collective, agree on what needed to be done, and then go off and
do it. People would always follow through on their commitments, or report
issues immediately so that the group could adjust plans. There would also be
no need to document and communicate a plan (like the barn-raising scene in
_Witness_ , the canonical example). People would understand their role, and
how it contributes to the whole, and would always act congruently with the
goals of the group.

Of course, we don't live in that perfect world. In the real world, we need
managers at various times, to help make the group more effective. So, with
respect to the title of your post, yes, managers are necessary. The secondary
question that I believe you touch on, "does manager have to be a dedicated
role", is more complicated. In the company I work for, many of our employees
move in and out of management roles, in addition to their day-to-day project
responsibilities. I've seen other organizations that are successful with a
similar approach. I think that where the team consists of highly trained
professionals, who have the requisite maturity, it _is_ possible to operate
with a part-time manager.

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bwh2
I personally enjoy having producers, which in a sense are like product
managers. The primary benefit is that producers can deal with the client,
whether internal or external. Programming and designing require long blocks of
concentration and it's hard to delivery quality products if you're routinely
interrupted.

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AmberShah
I disagree with the OP that managers "ideally" wouldn't be necessary. It's
only the stigma of BAD managers that we dislike. A great manager is a LEADER
who inspires and moves everything forward. Without those people we're just a
bunch of people working in parallel in a room, hoping it actually connects in
some useful way at the end. The person who can draw everyone together for a
common purpose and create a synchronous working environment IS the manager
(whether you call him that or not).

Let's not confuse the necessary role of a leader with the horrible
implementation by so many unqualified and stoopid people.

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lovskogen
I think it's possible for a group to share a common goal, without a person
connecting them.

Of course, if people in the group don't share goals - I think it necessary to
have someone keeping everyone 'on track'.

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SHOwnsYou
The benefit of having a manager (whether they be full time or part time) is to
have a central figure with vision on where to take the current project.

It is easy to have people that move in and out of management roles for
different projects, but each project will benefit from having a single person
with the vision to take the project from a collective of individual workers to
a deliverable product within an acceptable time frame, of an acceptable scope,
at an acceptable performance level and for an acceptable price.

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epynonymous
i disagree with your first point, management and leadership are fundamentally
different disciplines. management is more about execution and risk mitigation
whereas leadership is more about strategy, vision (as you stated), and perhaps
thinking outside the box to create change, change is risky. though i do think
you need both to move up the proverbial ladder.

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epynonymous
great question, i used to wonder what the heck my development manager was
doing all day, then i became him. currently i work in a mid-sized company
(150+).

if developers and designers could work out effective processes while
maintaining everyone's happiness/career growth, but at the same time pump out
good product then yes, you don't need a manager.

perhaps smaller companies are able to make good decisions quickly and don't
need to be bound by so many processes, and i imagine happiness is really
unimportant to everyone in these types of environments anyway because
everyone's already a masochist, but anytime you have multiple divisions with
different priorities then you need someone. decision making processes
typically become difficult when there are too many involved.

