[tlug] Up against the wall! [was: Running without Gnome...]

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:

 > This is why all the project managers will be first against the wall
 > when the revolution comes.

Bu-wha-ha-ha-ha!  But no, ain't gonna happen.  I too felt that way
until I got responsibility for running a couple of projects where
other people do all the real work.  It turns out that "project
manager" is a necessary role, although maybe not enough to fill a
whole day job with just one or two projects (underworked is a real
problem with managers, they start interfering until they've made
enough work to get themselves overworked :-( ).

The real revolution will be when all the project managers get stuffed
into classrooms to learn, and are given system support for, project
planning.  Oh, yeah, and get trusted to do a decent job of budgeting
by the boardroom "have MBA, will travel" types.  Remember, Linus and
Guido are talented hackers, but it's project management where they're
off-the-scale geniuses.  Somehow projects with (decent) managers do
better than those without.

If you really do line up all the project managers without doing
something to deal with the underlying organizational snafubar, you'll
just end up in the same situation as the non-pigs in Orwell's Animal
Farm, being unable to tell the new "development coordinators" from the
old "project managers".