Baldur Bjarnason
“The surprising connection between after-hours work and decreased productivity | Slack”
Surprising? This is literally literally what almost every post-WW2 productivity study has told us and has been the consensus in work and organisational psychology since the seventies https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/blog/news/the-surprising-connection-between-after-hours-work-and-decreased-productivity
Baldur Bjarnason
The important fact you all need to understand about modern management, especially as practiced in tech, is that they do not know their own field.
As in, they do not know what they’re doing.
They read airport books—the management equivalent of a Goop newsletter—and ignore the wealth of research done in organisational and management research.
They are fundamentally and deeply unserious about the craft of management.
Matt Ferrel
@baldur all of this is both common sense and has been known for decades.
Personally, I was most productive between 6-9pm because I could finally work uninterrupted after a day of meetings and helping others. But the overall hours were unsustainable over the long term.
Baldur Bjarnason
Declaring notifications bankruptcy on this thread, so I'm having to mute it now. If I don't reply to your reply then that's why 🙂
Urzl
@baldur Every generation, management commissions a new study in academia to figure out how to increase productivity and morale.
The answer is always: work less, compensate better.
Management writes them off as ivory tower academics who know nothing for another generation and the cycle repeats.
Magess :heart_ace:
@baldur The most consistently highly rated manager at my company was pro-remote work before it was cool and concerned about psychological safety before the rest of the company had heard the term.
No else ever took his example. They were never interested in why his team loved him or in replicating his success at keeping team members long term.
They just laid him off.
Baldur Bjarnason
@franktaber IMO the best start is the book Peopleware. Pragmatic through and through. The text is approachable without dumbing down. Gives a surprisingly thorough overview of good management practices in software.
I also enjoyed Resilient Management by Lara Hogan. Again, super pragmatic.
I need to do a bit of catching up to do on the management books that have come out in the past four or five years as it looks like there have been a few good ones, but those two are great starts.
Frank T
@baldur What would you recommend as a reading list?
Baldur Bjarnason
@oborosaur @franktaber https://toot.cafe/@baldur/111561301814049429 🙂
Oborosaur
Baldur Bjarnason
@faberfedor That’s a good point. Most programmers are also deeply unserious about their craft.
OTOH the people I know who work in retail and are only doing that job to pay the bills take their job more seriously as a practice than 90% of the programmers I know.
So I don’t think it applies to all human activity.
faberfedor
@baldur The same can be said of most people I've met over the years.
How many working programmers have read Knuth or SICP?
How many PMs have read Brooks or Fowler?
Instead of management Goop picked up at airport kiosks, these tech ppl get their info from the slashdot's, Stack Overflows, and Hackers Newses on the Web.
I daresay this applies to any human activity.
danjac
@baldur the MBA curse: the belief that all companies are fungible and you can just parachute in to a random organization and start running things.
A lesson you would think business would have learned since John Sculley jumped from Pepsi to Apple, but MBAs have a vested interest in not learning it.
elmuerte
@baldur "modern management" still has its roots in Frederick Taylor's fraudulent scam called "scientific management".
Scott 🇯🇲 🇺🇸
@baldur @franktaber Peopleware is an excellent book that I’m overdue to re-read. I’ve found the book Managing Humans (by Michael Lopp) to be an excellent read as well.
Baldur Bjarnason
@oborosaur @franktaber Sorry, pasted the wrong link https://toot.cafe/@baldur/111562225720716618
Oborosaur
@baldur @franktaber my apologies, but I don't understand the reference. The link appears to lead back to the observation that few managers read important literature about management, rather than to an indication of key papers, books, etc. that constitute this important literature.
Baldur Bjarnason
@lo_fye @grmpyprogrammer I made a couple of recommendations here https://toot.cafe/@baldur/111561301814049429
I've also heard good things about this book https://pragprog.com/titles/jsengman/become-an-effective-software-engineering-manager/ but I haven't read it myself.
Derek Martin
@baldur @grmpyprogrammer I’m a senior dev who kinda fell into management. What are some key management books that I should read?
moondog548
@baldur qualifications: they like the cut of each-others' jibs. 👍🏻
Jess👾
@baldur The old addage I've heard always continues to ring true to me:
Companies are growing when they're lead by people whose background is in the industry themselves - the engineers or whatever.
They peak and begin their decline when they're lead by people with background in business and finance.
When they're lead by lawyers, they're dying or dead.
Baldur Bjarnason
@gvwilson "Peopleware" would be first on my list. Accessible, plain-spoken, full of practical recommendations. Then, if they have an appetite for another, something funny but educational like "Management of the Absurd" or "The Inmates are Running the Asylum".
Greg Wilson
@baldur If you could get every 25-year-old programmer who hopes to be a VP of Engineering by the time their 30 to read 50K words, what would you put in front of them? Most of what I've encountered is cognoscenti talking to each other rather than to lay readers (even when they think they're doing the latter), which I think is one of the reasons the Goop books thrive.
Baldur Bjarnason
@gvwilson it has genuinely good advice based on research and practice. That it’s easy to read isn’t a flaw 🙂
Greg Wilson
@baldur interesting - I would have put "Peopleware" in the "airport bookstore" category
prom™️
@baldur Many programmers aren't serious about programming either. Only an idealist would code well without reaping the benefits - because the industry is being as lazy about quality as possible. It's simply a culture that we established.
Eric Eggert
@baldur “We have to pretend this is surprising because we have largely enabled this unsustainable behavior.”
Baldur Bjarnason
@yatil Yeah, that’s exactly it. See also how every study showing that open offices are productivity disasters gets called “surprising” as well.
clacke
Magnetic Dope Synthesizer
@baldur meanwhile, my job is offering unlimited OT for December. I said, no thanks.
haliphax 👾
@baldur My old boss: The Mythical Man Month is a great read
Also my old boss: I'm adding ten people to this project in the final stage in order to meet the deadline I arbitrarily chose before consulting with anyone doing the actual work
Andromeda Yelton
@baldur well I feel a lot better about my obvious need to take breaks now
Dan Hulton
@baldur @tess The only surprise was that it was surprising to Slack.
Ville Takanen
@baldur it never ceases to surprise me, how facts well known and studied for many decades surprise company top management every time they come up.
It's like being surprised of things falling if you drop them.
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