Batman and Robin

 

Why do tech companies have delegators?

It’s weird, isn’t it? I wish I had a clue.

First of all, who is a delegator? To understand it, one has to read this classical joke -

A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?” “I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”

Get it? I’m sure you do.

Delegators are the kind of people whose only job is to be involved from the sidelines. They are not the ones who do design, development, testing or manage projects. Well, may be, sometimes they manage projects but all they do is just check the tasks from the list and report status off of it. I’ve been part of companies where even the task list was created by the developers themselves and all they did was ask whether it was done or not.

So, what the hell is my problem?

Well, my only problem is that I see an increasing trend in the software industry(especially India) to have delegators take prominent positions, big offices and sometimes be the drivers of the tech. strategy - All when they have little clue about how to really go about building good software. How can one really build a good strategy when they are divorced from software eco system? Why should they get quiet working conditions(read: offices) when they are not the ones getting actual work done? Why should engineers report to people who don’t have many technical bones in their body?

Tech companies where techies are not part of the core group. Huh! Yeah, beats me too.

But, I get it as well. They are generally the people who can be good with processes, can manage P&L, can drive resourcing and recruiting for large scale projects. Thus, a genuine need for software companies to recruit such kind of people. And, to be honest, one can’t run a successful tech business especially software services business without them. Thus, the right kind of people add tremendous value in running a good software organization.

But, why the hell have them be at the driver seat? Shouldn’t they be just guiding the experienced technologists about the patterns of financial success for running software business? I just wish tech companies had the “two in a box” approach – Technologists as the drivers and the business aides as their side kicks like Batman and Robin.

Yeah, we just like to wear better suits and drive fancy cars :)