146 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
146 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
[[!meta title="A guide for IT bosses"]]
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## Introduction
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You are an IT boss. Your job is to manage the
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[IT crowd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IT_Crowd).
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Depending on your skills and knowledge you may find this
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job more easy or hard.
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This guide is created by those who you try to manage: The IT crowd.
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## Background
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I am a System Engineer currently working 80%
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for [local.ch (Swiss Phonebook)](http://www.local.ch) and 20% for
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[ungleich (Unix/Linux infrastructure company)](http://www.ungleich.ch).
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On a daily basis I see how employees and bosses are acting and I spent time
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on analysing the behaviour of both parties (for fun - not profit).
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As I often see common mistakes and behaviour patterns, which make
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good or bad bosses, the idea was born to create a guide for IT bosses.
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## Guidelines
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### Be honest
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Not a special requirement in regards of IT, but if you want your
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employees to respect you, you definitely need to be honest.
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Don't even think about playing tricks on them, they will find out and
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everybody will lose the respect for you. Guaranteed.
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### Be available
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Your job involves a lot of meetings and coordination.
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Your employees understand that and may even be very thankful you took that job.
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Still, as you are the boss, communicate straightly when you are available, so
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people can bring their questions and problems to you.
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If you see there is too less time to be available for your team, it's probably
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good time to split up the team or to move on to another position
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and promote somebody else for being the head of IT crowd.
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### Give freedom
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More important than in probably most other areas is the amount of freedom you
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give: IT professionals are usually bright people who understand their job very
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well. The learn on the job (which includes getting side tracked from time to time),
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they are keen to touch the latest and newest technologies and have a high motivation.
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Adding artifical borders to the way the work makes them less productive, less motivated and
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in the worst case leave your workplace.
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Pay even more attention on this topic, if you have some technical background.
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You may know (or think you know!) what the best solution or technical choice is,
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but you hired those people to do a good job, not just to execute your thoughts, did you?
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### Don't assume
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Don't try to enhance the working situation
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of your employees with stuff you assume could be good for them.
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You will most likely be wrong.
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Instead listen to your employees or ask them about your idea.
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Spending an hour or day discussing is probably more worth than throwing away your
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shiny new invention.
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### Give tools
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Have you ever seen a good craftsman working with broken tools? Probably not. Take the same
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approach for your IT professionals: If they request specific tools
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(software, notebook, mobile phone, screen, etc.), they probably have a good reason for it.
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Don't hesitate to question the request ("Why do you need this / how does it make you more
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efficient?"), but also don't hesitate to let them buy the right tools afterwards.
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Denying to give good tools makes your employees less motivated, less productive and
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indicate you don't value their work.
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Regarding value: Did you consider that the 3000 USD notebook,
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even if it is not better than the employees current computer,
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is worth the motivation you gain from it?
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### Plan, assist and communicate objectives
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Your key competence as an IT boss is probably planning and communication.
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Use this power to **assist (!)** your IT crowd: Aid them in planning their work,
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show them how to plan and communicate what you expect from them.
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Don't try to squeeze them into a specific way of working. Better: Let your employees know
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what the objectives are (expected results, date of delivery).
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They probably
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figure better out how to reach it than you. Always remember:
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IT guys are different,
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some of them love to work in the night,
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some of them cannot concentrate in open plan offices
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and some of them want to work under high pressure (do all the work in one night).
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### Consider the difference
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Compared to many other professions, IT people are behaving a **bit** differently
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(that's why sysadmins have their own
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[time management](http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833/)
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book, for example). This may require special treatments from your side: For instance
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the usual motivation factors may not work as expected. If you listen carefully, you
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may hear "weird" requests like "I'd like to start working at 14:00 until the night".
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If possible, try to honour these requests: They don't cost a lot of ressources, but
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they require an open minded leader.
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### Set values in relation
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IT projects are quite often expensive and there are various reasons for it.
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One of them being a future orientated market requires using latest high
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technology equipment. IT guys are used to carrying around computers worth
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a car or a bigger house. Thus IT guys are aware of the money that is being
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spent on IT equipment.
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As stated before, your IT guys may have special requirements, not only in terms
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of working time, but also their choice of tools may be non standard.
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Instead of denying to buy simple tools for your IT guys, include those costs into
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the project budget. Also consider reading
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[Parkinson's law of triviality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality).
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## See also
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The following resources may be of interest for you as well:
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* [The Hacker FAQ](http://www.seebs.net/faqs/hacker.html)
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* [Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager](http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engineering/dp/1430243147/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366379157&sr=8-1)
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* [How to Work with Software Engineers](https://www.kennethnorton.com/essays/how-to-work-with-software-engineers.html)
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## More to come
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This article is work in progress and is being enhanced by input
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from other IT professionals (thanks for all the great comments!).
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If you want to contribute,
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you can add a comment on [Hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575419),
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[reddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1co3y5/a_guide_for_it_bosses/)
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or [[contact me directly|about]].
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[[!tag localch net unix]]
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