In advance, this will not be an article. It will be series of articles where I will be sharing my thoughts and experience on managing/leading software development teams. The content of these articles might not sound correct, or even might not be correct at all. Things I will cover here will mostly be subjective, depending on my experience and thoughts. You don’t need agree, but can always discuss the pros and cons. I am sure that I will also benefit from such a discussion and would like to hear your thought as well.
I am personally not inclined to the term “management”. This is not because what it is, but the translation of the term in my native language. There are two different meaning of management in my language. One is “to get along”, other one is “to administer”. While the term “administer” is acceptable, “get along” is quite uncomfortable. It lacks the context of some important qualities such as “being pro-active”, “innovation” and “leadership”.
While working with developers I observed that leadership is more important than management. Actually I think that you have to “manage” processes and projects, but “lead” developers. Let’s face it, we (yes, I still feel like I am one), developers don’t like to meddled with. We like to work independently, without getting direct orders. A good developer is the one who you assign the task and get the result, without much interference. And the leader has to provide space, help and opportunity to the developer to become a good one.
There is proverb in Turkish I like it very much. It can be translated as “The horse neighs according to its rider” and corresponds to concept of “leading by example”. This is quite true. Horse connect to their riders and sense their feelings. As experienced riders say “When you ride a horse two creature become one. A horse is as good as its rider”. This is almost identical while leading a team. Teams are strongly bound to leading strategy and their response is shaped according to their team mates and leader. After a while the team ideally become one, mutual organism.
So, it will be quite important how you lead them. Remember, a team will be as good as its leader. And the most important skill for a leader will be creating a coherent organism from different types of personalities and skills. To create it, you have to believe two things from the bottom of your heart. Believe that “it can be done” and “believe that it can be done with the people in your team”. And don’t try to manage people to be a part of it, lead them!