November 29, 2012 at 8:53 am
brian.francis (11/29/2012)
I agree that the managers don't need the technical details, but a discussion of what options are available and what is most appropriate for the situation is critical. Too often I see IT folks just assume the implementation they did for project X applies for project Y and the business has no idea how their system was implemented. If you don't explain the options with the costs and benefits then they tend not to realize they're even making a choice. Usually when I see people talking very technical, it's because they don't really understand what they're doing so they try to intimidate others so they stop asking questions. This leads to poor communication and a general mess.
+1
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November 29, 2012 at 8:56 am
Hiza,
Just remember to not let these kinds of things get you upset. Managment many times asks dumb questions. It does not mean they are dumb. Just misinformed. There's no such thing as a stupid question, but many times they're the easiest to answer. It's all how you approach it 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
November 29, 2012 at 8:59 am
Good admonition, Steve. I'm one who tends to give too much detail to managers. I do this for a variety of reasons, like thinking that I've got to prove to my management that what I do is complicated. And sometimes that results in situations like you've described where management is now micro-managing based upon what they think they understand of the problem. I have to work to not giving too much detail.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
November 29, 2012 at 9:00 am
Oh, certainly. Work does frustrate me on occasion, but usually it takes something orders of magnitude greater than that to bug me :-). I was just weirded out by the situation... In my mind, if we could create a procedure that works, verify that it works, and record its results for error-checking should problems develop. that was a solid defense against trouble. The idea that it could be faulty just because the formulae weren't visible threw me for a loop!
- 😀
November 29, 2012 at 9:12 am
Too much detail dilutes management effectiveness.
If you are a detail person and a manager then it is too easy to get sucked into detailed technical debates rather than stepping back and letting people get on with it.
If a non-technical manager gets highly technical information then they just switch off and miss the key point that you wanted them to understand. If they have a low understanding of the technical world they can get panicked by info that DBAs and other techies regard as business as usual.
Alternatively you find them strangely unavailable whenever you need to speak to them.
Let them ask for more detail if they require it but find a way of asking why without sounding defensive and patronising. "If you could let me know what your end goal is then this would help me to find the salient facts".
November 29, 2012 at 9:57 am
David.Poole (11/29/2012)
Too much detail dilutes management effectiveness.If you are a detail person and a manager then it is too easy to get sucked into detailed technical debates rather than stepping back and letting people get on with it.
If a non-technical manager gets highly technical information then they just switch off and miss the key point that you wanted them to understand. If they have a low understanding of the technical world they can get panicked by info that DBAs and other techies regard as business as usual.
Alternatively you find them strangely unavailable whenever you need to speak to them.
Let them ask for more detail if they require it but find a way of asking why without sounding defensive and patronising. "If you could let me know what your end goal is then this would help me to find the salient facts".
True story David, but I have worked with some managers in the past that didn't even know what the word "salient" meant. It's not all just on us DBA's to stay low-level and brief in our communications with management. We also expect managers to have some clue as to what is going on in the IT industry today as well. We don't expect Einstein, granted, but we are not expecting Goober either.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
November 29, 2012 at 10:45 am
Hmm, the topic of this editorial sounds strangely, familiar...:Whistling:
Situations like this, it doesn't help when the manager is / was a technical person, but in an area that has nothing to do with the problem at hand. Some managers (I would think the good ones) would *know* that they don't know as much as the person they're instructing and would trust said persons judgement. The "bad" managers would either work from the (flawed) premise of "I know A, therefore I also know B," or start pushing for more information but not really trying to grasp the topic. Of course, the third possibility is the "I'm the manager, do it my way, period" situation...
In the case of the "bad" managers, I would agree that the best thing that can be done is:
A) Hope for the best, and do your best to make it work
B) Keep a "paper" (OK, e-mail) trail with your attempts at convincing them of the better solution
Jason A.
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