Re: Do I Really Need A Supervisor?

[antialias@earthlink.net]

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Do I Really Need A Supervisor: 
My Observations of My Supervisors

Has my supervisor been a help or a hindrance to the projects 
I have been on? Below, as an example of one software engineer's
experience I summarize the project and the supervisor's role
and render my opinion as to the supervisor's helpfulness.
Finally, a comment for each as to whether I could have done 
better with or without that supervisor.

I begin my career ten years ago:

An IRAD project studying Ada in multiprocessor 1750A runtime
system implementations. The supervisor was a physics major,
did not know Ada, had about three years experience programming
embedded fortran. Was not very helpful. Was needed though, 
because I and my coworkers were inexperienced.

A missile guidance subsystem in 1750A Ada. The supervisor was 
also a physics major. Did not know Ada, but learned quickly.
Did not know how to organize the project. Skipped unit testing
went straight to big bang testing, costing us an extra year
of effort. Was so-so as a supervisor. I could have done better 
if he had been more of a leader.

A multiprocessor missile guidance system in TMS320C30 and R3000
Ada. The supervisor was a math major. Did not know Ada. Did not
care to learn. Mismanaged the project. Project was cancelled by
the Air Force and given to our competitors. The supervisor's
poor decisions were a major reason the project was cancelled.
Would have been much better without her.

A multiprocessor electronic warfare system in 68040 Ada. The 
supervisor knew Ada. Was an EE with a field service engineer
background. Was technically bright, aggressive at resolving
problems. Spent little time in meetings, a lot of time working
on the system. Was very helpful. Was better with him.

An avionics test system in 68040 Ada. The supervisor was a
chemical engineer who knew a lot of PC buzz words. Was totally
technically incompetent. Hired me to fix a problem which took
me half an hour to fix. Had me work on it for four months. Was
totally useless and a considerable hindrance to the project.
The company would have been better without this supervisor.

An avionics display system in R3000 Ada. The supervisors (two)
were software people. They spent a lot of time arguing with the
upper management. When they weren't arguing, they were helpful.
I could have gotten the job done without them though.

A MIS system in Ada. Three supervisors: A former B-52 pilot who
had an HR degree, and two federal employees who were software
people. The bomber pilot was dead weight, but a barrel of fun
to have around. The other two were competent, but unable to
convey what in the world it was that we were supposed to be
developing. They managed a staff of twelve, most of which
sat around and did nothing useful (one was in charge of 
monitoring our software reuse. Another was tasked with developing
a string manipulation library. Others had no apparent function).
The whole project was useless. I fled from it after three months.

A tank software system in C. The supervisor was an EE. Was
very helpful, but by and large I was left to develop the
software for my box on my own, so I guess I didn't really 
need him to be a supervisor. 

An electronic warfare system in Ada. The supervisor does not
know Ada. Does not have time to do software development. Barely
knows what it is that I am working on. I could do the job better
on my own. 

So there you have my opinions. I think I am better off if the
supervisor is highly technically competent and smart enough to
discard/ignore/hand off the useless management stuff and focus
instead on getting software developed. I think I am worse off if
I have someone over me who does not know or care about what I
am doing and who hides their technical incompetence by burying
themselves in management work - meetings, tracking, spreadseets,
paperwork, metrics, statistics. It is the software that 
matters, who should care about anything else? Produce software
that passes the tests, and no one really needs all this supervision
and management. 

Save time, save money - reduce supervision of software engineers.