The Cranky Middle Manager Show #014 Sometimes It IS Rocket Science
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #014 (MP3 11.3MB 32:59 Min)
This is the another of our shows where we talk to working managers about what works for them. Today it’s Tom Comeau, who is the Branch Manager of the Servers and Application Services Branch at the Space Telescope Science Institute- the folks who run the Hubble Telescope.
He first contacted me as a result of hearing about the show on Heidi Miller’s “Diary of a Shameless Self Promoter”. This is what he sent me…
Thank you for podcasting the Cranky Middle Manager!
I’ve been listening to your ‘cast for a while now, and also Heidi Miller’s
“Diary of a Shameless Self Promoter”. Your July 31st episode got me thinking
about my next career move, which meant doing some thinking about self
promotion. That led me to an exercise Heidi suggested about two second
teasers and a correspondence with her about how I work and what I do.
I’m a technical manager, and I know you’re down on the IT guys. Often, I
hasten to add, not without reason. Some of us, however, are good guys, or
at least try to be.
Heidi’s suggestions for capturing how I work led to this:
> As soon as you gave the examples, I jumped to the motto that my own project
> team uses:
>
> Attack The Fracking Problem.
>
> We actually (mostly) say “fracking” because many of us are Battlestar
> Galactica fans. A few people use other “F” words. We also all come from
> Unix backgrounds, where “RTFM” is standard response, so “ATFP” is a natural
> thing for us to do. (Editor’s note- this is not going to help the image of geeks any, but carry on)
>
> … There are several points to this motto. The one I point out is
> that we’re trying to attack the problem, not the messenger. Don’t challenge
> the person who brought you the problem, they did you a favor by bringing it
> to you. The next point is to focus on the problem, not extraneous nonsense.
> How we arrived at the problem, if there are process issues, is something we
> get to later, in a post-mortem. For now, we focus on root causes,
> workarounds, and solutions. Finally, I want to *attack* problems. Not
> nibble at them, not fiddle with them, and certainly not whine about them.
> Go figure out how to kill them, stuff them, and mount them on the wall.
I’m not sure if/when/where/how you could use this, but I wanted you to at
least know there was one technical middle manager out there whose heart is
in the right place.
Maybe you can get sales to buy us lunch!
Thanks again for doing the Cranky Middle Manager. Listening to it always
gets me thinking, even when it doesn’t cheer me up. I’m keeping my
weasel-whacker handy.
Tom
Well, it got me thinking- first, why is anybody this smart listening to THIS show? Once I got past that I knew this was a guy you’d all want to hear about so here we go….
o:00 Welcome to the show- today’s hero is Sir Gareth- my favorite Knight of the Round Table
2:30 Quote of the week, from the Marcus Fabius Quintilius. Not much of a thinker but is that a cool name or what?
3:30 Welcome Tom Comeau. In his own words he “wrangles the geeks who build Hubble’s databases and servers”
8:30 So how do you get a cool job like that?
10:36 One more reason he’s my hero- he’s never had to fire anyone…
15:00 Attack the Fracking problem… really
18:54 What was it like being part of Hubble from the early troubles to the impending budget axe? This is cool stuff…
28:00 Here are the resources Tom likes:
Manager Tools podcast (Mike and Mark)
Lee Hopkin’s Better Communication Results podcast:
ACM Tech Tips email list (don’t need to be an ACM member)
Mostly tech news, but includes tech manager articles pretty regularly
Workforce Management Magazine
Aimed at HR managers, lots on salary, benefits and legal issues, but the
occasional nugget. Usually I only read a few articles, plus the statistical
summary in the back of the mag, which helps with understanding my HR people.
One the web at www.workforce.com
Speaking of books…don’t forget about mine. “A Philistine’s Journal, an Average Guy Tackles the Classics”.
September 13th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
[...] Also, thanks to Paul Comeau for mentioning us during his interview on the Cranky Middle Manager Show. The kind remarks are very much appreciated. For those of you who haven’t heard Wayne’s interview of Paul, you can find the show at the The Cranky Middle Manager Website. [...]
September 14th, 2005 at 7:39 am
Absolutely brilliant presentations! Very confident voice, which attracts.
I would love to publish podcasts in Russian language on the same topics.