Erudite Relics of Loc Huu Ho

ORIGINAL SOURCE HERE

26th March 2009

I was reading a polemic if entrepreneurs should, or not, get an MBA and I would like to put forth my idea about the matter.

We are always learning and will continue until dead. There is always something that could be improved and, to figure out, knowledge will facilitate the process.

I agree that many entrepreneurs develop their business skills with blood, sweat and tears, as I did. I co-founded two high tech start-ups and, after 25 years of

By Scott Berkun, June 1, 2006

In part one, I covered getting started, why managers are different and other essentials. Here in part 2 we get into tactics you need for the first few weeks.

Getting acclimated

Survival training of any kind teaches you one thing: before you act, know where you are. Say, for example, I dumped you, blindfolded and dehydrated, in the Swiss Alps. Your first move wouldn

By Scott Berkun, January 25, 2006

The central mistake new managers make is egoism. On the surface, the change is all about you: you

As a positive counterpoint to my list of why managers become assholes, and as a counterbalance to my tendency to write cynically,

Original Article Here

September 05, 2008

To work in IT you have to have a tech background, right? Nope. With the right set of management skills, even a nontechnical person can make it as a successful manager. Sure, it helps to understand the bits and-bytes of each employee’s area of expertise. If nothing else, it means the manager can appreciate what the staff does right and recognize weaknesses. But how can managers accurately evaluate team performance or assign tasks when they know little or nothing about what the individual does? According to some technical employees, the answer is communication.

Making the Case for Tech Skills

That’s not to say you can be a bozo about the area you’re responsible for. People sometimes assume that a good manager can manage anyone. However, a case can easily be made that tech managers should have at least a rudimentary idea of what their teams do. To manage effectively, the manager needs to understand enough to allocate resources and to schedule reasonable time frames for project completion.

“A manager that knows less than the managed loses the respect of the team, unless (s)he is a really good professional that knows what to ask for, how to delegate, and can be supportive,” says a developer named Victor.” See Dilbert.”

That lack of respect frustrates employees, say tech staff members. It translates to miscommunication that negatively impacts productivity and the user experience across the business.

“The untechnical management I’ve had just wasn’t as effective in getting things done,” says Donna MacLeod, a systems analyst at a medical diagnostic company. “The lack of understanding for technical matters meant that a lot of projects which really, really needed funding never took off because there was no one both technical enough and business-savvy enough to sell it to the board. We were constantly lacking funding even though we were literally running ancient machines which were the backbone of the business and patching together those boxes with parts ordered off of eBay