Your technical lead position may be limited to providing coaching and feedback on only the technical issues. I don’t mean that as a negative thing. For many technical leads, that’s an enormous job. To do more would be overwhelming, especially if there are four or more people on the team.
And, some technical leads do more than that, operating much more in the management realm. Some technical leads do everything up to writing performance evaluations and managing the project portfolio. In my opinion, they have become managers by then. If you look at the qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills required to perform the work, as well as the value that they provide on a daily basis, their overall value to the company is managerial, not technical.
What’s the Value of the Work?
No matter what job you have or what job you are looking to fill, always ask yourself this question: What is the value of the work that the person filling that job will provide?
A long time ago, in a company far away, a colleague, Beryl took a new job as the director of software quality. She discovered she was desperately in need of technical leaders. Here is Beryl’s story:
I was once a director of software quality at a company where we had fifteen testers and three performance engineers. My predecessor had not hired enough automation people, and only two of the fifteen people had automation experience and capability. Our customers wanted faster releases and more product speed. We were in trouble. We could diagnose the problems, thanks to our performance engineers, but we couldn’t provide feedback fast enough to our developers. We didn’t have the talent in our test group. What could we do? One of my testers was a very sharp guy who knew the code base inside and out. I asked him if he wanted to be a technical lead, not a manager. I wanted someone who could lead the test automation effort, so we could provide better feedback to the developers. I didn’t need help with management; I needed help with automation. Once I explained how valuable the job was, he happily said yes. Then, I had to get HR to understand how valuable the job was and to pay him for it. That was a different problem.
Technical leads fill necessary roles that are not management roles in the organization.
Managers Work Outside the Team
Managers expand their influence outside the team, as well as upwards and across management. Technical leads and technical people tend to use their influence within the team and across technical teams. They use their influence less often with management. While negotiation and influence skills may be necessary for both, what’s important to technical people is not going to be important to other managers.
Promoting a great technical person into a management position may handicap that person for influence and negotiation—unless that person has great empathy and rapport-building skills or wants to develop those skills. And, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get into software because I had great empathy and rapport-building skills. I’ve worked to develop them over the years.
Great Technical People Can Be Great Managers
Don’t get me wrong. Great technical people can be terrific managers if they want to be. I suggest asking people if they want to be managers before you promote them. Sometimes, when people want a promotion, they want a technical promotion, not a managerial promotion. So, ask first.
Make sure you know the difference between a technical lead and a manager, and know which one you’re asking the promoted person or new hire to be. Maybe your set of activities is different from my proposed set. That’s fine. Clarify the expectations for any role. Just don’t assume that the best person for the job is the best technical person.
Read all of Johanna's Management Myths here:
- The Myth of 100% Utilization
- Only the 'Expert' Can Perform This Work
- We Must Treat Everyone the Same Way
- I Don't Need One-on-Ones
- We Must Have an Objective Ranking System
- I Can Save Everyone
- I Am Too Valuable to Take a Vacation
- I Can Still Do Significant Technical Work
- We Have No Time for Training
- I Can Measure the Work by the Time People Spend at Work
- The Team Needs a Cheerleader!
- I Must Promote the Best Technical Person to Be a Manager
- I Must Never Admit My Mistakes
Pages
About the author
Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” helps organizational leaders see problems and risks in their product development. She helps them recognize potential “gotchas,” seize opportunities, and remove impediments. Johanna was the Agile 2009 conference chair. She is the technical editor for Agile Connection and the author of these books:
- Manage Your Job Search
- Hiring Geeks That Fit
- Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
- The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
- Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management
- Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People
Johanna is working on a book about agile program management. She writes columns for Stickyminds.com and projectmanagementcom and blogs on her website, jrothman.com, as well on createadaptablelife.com.
