Technology toward management, qualitative change or quantitative change? --Published in "Programmer" 2014 issue 12

This article was published in the 2014 issue of Programmer magazine 12.

When a research and development team personnel reached a certain scale, point-to-point plane communication mode will inevitably become the bottleneck of team development, this time the management post came into being, some technical staff in the "technology and excellent is" the concept of a management post. The so-called management, the tube is the person, the reason is the matter, regardless of which aspect to the technical origin just enters the management post the person is not easy matter: Some people do the management the thing, but the thought also stays in the technical; some people although the thought already is in the management, but suffers not to find the management pattern and the routine. Is it a qualitative change or a quantitative change? Based on team management, this paper discusses how to manage from the point of view of management personnel.

1. What is a management person?

Managers are a mix of three roles:

• Facilitator: As a co-ordinator of research and development teams and external teams (such as product teams, project teams, operations teams, etc.), collaborate and lubricate the entire product development process in a consistent and efficient way.
• Problem Solver: As an authority in one aspect of a team, it is often necessary to lead the way in solving problems in the development process.
• Teacher: As a manager, responsible for the training and guidance of team members to ensure that the development team's cognitive level and working mode are consistent.

In view of the above three roles, managers will need to play a key role in the effective use of research and development resources, the succession of know-how, the promotion of research and development processes, the cultivation of technical personnel and the solution of problems. As described in "Conway's Law": The results of a software design and development largely reflect the organization and communication structure of the team, and the importance of managing people as an important part of the Organization and communication structure is obvious. But while affirming the role of managers, they also have to acknowledge the challenges they face. The core task of traditional industry management is to integrate, that is, to ask team members to Unison, we stand together steadily forward, while the software industry research and development engineers have their own unique creativity, many times have their own ideas and judgments, which requires managers to integrate the team and to play the differences of team members, As with project management we need to pursue a balance, and managers face the same dilemma.

2. About mindset

To solve the problems faced by technology steering management, to ensure that the transformation process is qualitative, not quantitative, the first element is to establish the correct mindset. The following table is a comparison of the general Research and development engineers and managers in the mindset, from the table we can see that managers need from the past dedication, focus, standard, creative transformation to comprehensive thinking, planning management, guidance and coordination, that is, the scope and content of the work will shift from "I" to "T" shape.

In terms of values, many thought patterns from the agile world need to be advocated, such as communication, simplicity, feedback, courage, openness, and commitment. Managers are not just practitioners of these values, but their advocates. To become a successful manager, the individual combs the "2p3r" principle as a guide to his work thought, namely:

• Plan: The direction of a successful planning guide
• Perform: A combination of individuals and actions, executive power
• Record: Put the process and results into the records
• Responsibility: Responsible to ensure the team's grasp
• Rule: Rules lay the groundwork for work to unfold

These "2p3r" principles are also common to other areas of management. Technicians are constantly gaining the sense of accomplishment of technology from their creativity, and for technical-born managers, when management itself becomes an idea, it can lead to a research and development team full of combat and passion.

3. Process and tools

Like CMMI, IPD and other research and development management and process model advocacy, one thing to be successful, "How to do things right" is highly advocated. So how do we do things right? This requires process management and process improvement. The process involves all aspects of research and development, and the process that managers look at often includes the project management process, the product management process, the technical management process, and the team management process. Process is a weapon in the hands of managers, technicians may turn to one or more of the above management positions, but the industry generally believes that improving product development and delivery capabilities of the process of practice and related tools are also in the role of change must be understood and mastered.

Technology shift management needs to focus on research and development models first. The research and development model includes pace, IPD, CMMI, SCRUM, XP, lean, and Pmbok, all of which are unique, but each has its limitations. Technicians focus more on the technology itself, and managers need to select appropriate research and development management and process improvement models to improve team service delivery capabilities based on team status and development characteristics.

The application life cycle and the release pipeline are the other side that managers need to focus on. Code development and maintenance work is naturally important, but for managers, the project/product lifecycle and the processes that revolve around that lifecycle need to be designed and monitored to ensure the correctness of the process, common configuration management, versioning, continuous integration, and so on.

Artifacts (such as code, requirements, documents, deliverables, etc.) that revolve around the application lifecycle need to be effectively managed and maintained through tools to ensure the flow and tracking of information. The technician is concerned about the good code, and the manager's perspective is information transparency. Through demand analysis, we break down the scope of the project/product into a task with ticket, these ticket as the basis of research and development work, managers need to master the Project management system, version control system, automatic construction system and other tools to carry out the scope and time control through these ticket. At the same time, for managers, the construction team knowledge management platform, the use of standardized mail and other basic tools are part of the daily work.

4. Re-discussion Team

Technicians typically only need to maintain an interface relationship in the team, that is, the developer interface, but for managers, in team management, it is often necessary to act as three primary interfaces, namely the team's external interface, the team's internal interface, and the organization-level interface. The technical staff turn to the early management often because of the multi-interface does not adapt to affect the implementation of specific work.

The team external interface is on the one hand to agree with external teams in scope management, time management and internal communication model, on the other hand, and should also assist quality assurance team to ensure the release of the final service.

The internal interface of the team involves all aspects of the team, the selection and execution of the team work mode, the promotion of the engineering practice, the guarantee of the team's code quality, the organization of the team meeting, the improvement of the team work process and so on. Team members usually have a certain understanding of the internal interface, but want to stand in the management position of the flexibility to promote and control, the need for technical personnel from the participants to the leader of the change.

The Organization level interface provides the definition of process assets, the management experience of research and development teams, and the improvement of process to ensure the complete life cycle of the product/project and the construction of the organizational process assets.

5. Summary

Everything involves both importance and urgency, and according to the four-quadrant approach, doing important but not urgent things is the basis of a virtuous circle of the team. Both to ensure the efficient operation of the internal team, but also to meet the requirements of the external, just embark on the management of the technical personnel need to cultivate internal and external two levels can pursue the balance of ideas and skills, which is from the technology to management from quantitative change to qualitative change process.

Technology toward management, qualitative change or quantitative change? --Published in "Programmer" 2014 issue 12