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A close friend shared the following article with me this morning, which started a debate within my head:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080917_005420.html
The debate is does a leader need to be versed in the technologies deployed by their team. For example, if you are running a development effort do you need to be versed in the database and development tools being used? Is an understanding of the business and the business requirements enough? As a leader, I've defaulted to ever increasing the depth and breathe of my leadership skills and the ability to maintain an open, collaborative organization where the voice of the customer is king. That said, not everyone is a believer that this is enough.
I thought I would open it up for discussion.
Clarification added 8 months ago:
The other part of leading technology groups is project management and product management disciplines, I didn't want to infer that it can be done on charisma alone. So please consider this skill set in your response as well. Thx.
* This was selected as Best Answer
Scott,
I think it can go both ways. It's highly dependent on the individual in that leadership role. I've worked alongside, with and for non-technical managers who were put in positions of managing application development efforts where their understanding of the business requirements and ability to simply "manage" was much more valuable than a technical manager, with less "management" and business savvy but who could performance optimize a developers SQL queries. However, note that I said "application" development, if you put the same savvy non-technical manager in the position of managing engineers who are writing firmware, operating systems, or any systems component level development he or she becomes ineffective right away. The language and technical gaps becomes widely apparent in this type of development and sorely needed in order to lead the team, so here their technical skills and [more than] familiarity with the task at hand at a technical level becomes more important.
When it comes to differentiating skill types and smarts and does it make sense for non-technical managers to dive into developing their technical skills I always use my dear mother as an example. For years and years, whenever I have visited my mother’s house, and the VCR (pre-Tivo) was always sitting on its shelf above the TV with the time 12:00 blinking. And although she had invested in the VCR, she could never record a single show, play a tape yes, record, not in a million years. Now, did I mention that this woman has two Phd's and a Masters degree. Yet, no amount of coaching would ever have got the time and date properly set on that device.
Taking a 10,15,20 year plus non-technical IT manager, and diving him or her head-strong into developing an engineering background, that his or her own team took 5,10,15 years to develop is not necessarily the best use of their time. Their focus is best spent on improving on the skills that they already do well, and keeping abreast of the technologies, use cases, best practices, pros and cons – all of the discussion points that you can use to intelligently challenge and invoke debate and discussions around technology choices for example.
However, the inverse is different, I would recommend that the technical manager who is not proficient in understanding the business that he or she ultimately services should work on developing these skills post haste – for example if you work in an investment bank on the IT side, you should know what a derivative is, an arbitrage, the difference in the Equities and Fixed Income markets, how a trade clears and settles, etc.
It should be every IT persons goal to develop a greater business understanding, but as much as I hate to say it, the opposite does not hold true – the technology is being commoditize to the point that the differentiators are not in the “how” but the “what” – bottom-line know a lot about something (be an expert), and just less (hold your own) than a lot about everything else.
Good Luck,
Peter
November 2008