What does "the business" need to understand about developers and IT?

Question

Apologies - not exactly a programming related query, but (I hope) valuable none the less.

I've the opportunity to help develop the skill set of a future "general manager" (aiming at CEO level in a small to medium sized firm; something like a divisional head in a larger firm).

The person in question has a solid business background, with experience in business management, business operations, marketing, etc, and is currently getting an introduction into the service management world, but otherwise minimal exposure to the technology world.

The question then is, what, in your perfect world, would someone in a senior management position understand about technologists? or about the IT world in general? If you've examples of books they ought to read, weblogs, etc, then so much the better.

Answer 1

Dreaming in code is a book any software development manager must read.

I think the most important thing for me is managers know that developers generally take pride in the work they do. Managers should allow developers to experiment with new technologies in order to raise the bar that the company is operating at.

Answer 2

Actually - and I've held this belief for some time - I'd suggest an understanding of the business benefits of "flexible hours" and telecommuting and what they mean to a business.

For a long time many managers (especially middle managers) seem to have had the "bums on seats" mentality - that if people aren't sitting in chairs in the office that they aren't working or producing results. This has been far from the truth in my experience.

Teach the future CEO how to read metrics and to rely on estimates backed with some sort of rationale and to trust delivery and results over a 40 hour/week timesheet and physical on-site presence.

Answer 3

I'd suggest your future CEO reads Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. It explores how, in order to be most effective, the working environment for developers should differ from what might be considered the norm in business.

Answer 4

Just because your daughter knows how to use FaceBook does not mean that she is an IT expert...

Understand that the IT team are the company experts in IT. Don't trust other departments when they say a feature should only take a day to implement.

Answer 5

They should know that it's impossible to fully specify an IT system until after the customer has started using it - you don't know what you want until you start using a system and new ways of working suggest themselves.

Equally you need a good mechanism for transfering knowledge from the programming team to the users, otherwise you'll have features that are mis-used or never used (and the feedback motivates and focusses the programmers).

Answer 6

About developers : 20% developers are responsible of 80% of your productivity

About IT : open source is not evil

Answer 7

Don't try to measure the performance of developers as though they're a sales team, because it won't work (see Joel's article on the subject).

Answer 8

Embrace Change

We had a similar situation where the owner of the company came from a service industry background and ventured to develop software for this industry. The above answers are very helpful but I feel there is something key that is missing.

The one thing that the owner had to learn, along with many of the execs, was that in the software or IT industry, the only thing one can truly count on is that it's going to change. How one adapts to this ever changing industry is a direct reflection of how successful/unsuccessful the efforts put forth end up being.

Therefore, since we can guarantee that change is coming, learning how to be flexible and adjust to the situations gracefully seems the valuable lesson learned on our side.