As a manager, there is diminishing returns to measurements. At a certain point, you have to trust the team to do the right thing without having full documentation, specification, and provable outcomes.
Many of the most important decisions do not have quantifiable outcomes. How many incidents did this architecture or refactor prevent? What cultural effect would that person we didn’t hire have had over the next year?
At least in early stage or growing startups, I think if every one of your actions is measurable and fully specced, you’re in trouble.
> At a certain point, you have to trust the team to do the right thing...
Yeah, but that is explicitly not managing them. That is the standard "I can't measure this situation, therefore I will not attempt to manage it" response of a good manager.
You are not perfect though. There will always be factors overlooked and simply acknowledging that before it becomes a problem is something most management has failed to grasp which is what motivates this sentiment. I can bet now often than not on this thread alone now people have felt the negative effects of every action being quantified for the sake of 'profitability' by someone who lacks a firm grasp on the field being measured, which leads to high performing employees being let go.
I don’t really know what that means. Management is not about control, it’s about outcomes.
I am responsible for the outcomes of my teams, full stop. I am responsible for the growth and development of the engineers who report to me.
If that means sometimes standing back and letting the cook, then that’s the right thing to do. I’m not here to involve myself because otherwise people will ask “well what are you doing??”
(The answer to that is that the more independent teams can run at a high velocity of quality output, the fewer managers your company needs. That is good!)
> Management is not about control, it’s about outcomes.
Management is about controlling the outcomes. Nobody could claim to be managing a situation well if they are responsible but exercising literally no influence over the process. If the manager could be replaced with a garden gnome and it doesn't change the outcome then the situation is effectively unmanaged.
We seem to be in furious agreement so I don't know why my perspective is eluding you. You're looking at a situation that might have an outcome that is unacceptable. You've identified that there is no measurable way to assess progress or quality. You've concluded that there is nothing you can say, do or observe that will help. The situation is then left unmanaged because there is nothing to measure and you're waiting for something you can measure before you act. This is the basics of management, what you can measure you can manage what you can't you can't.
It just happens that in the small software is unmanageable, as quickly becomes clear if you have management experience of a non-software process and compare it to managing a software team.
Many of the most important decisions do not have quantifiable outcomes. How many incidents did this architecture or refactor prevent? What cultural effect would that person we didn’t hire have had over the next year?
At least in early stage or growing startups, I think if every one of your actions is measurable and fully specced, you’re in trouble.