Yet another chance to call out the highly relevant essay "The Tyranny of Structurelessness":
http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
It should be required reading for anyone pushing the "we don't need managers" line.
http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
It should be required reading for anyone pushing the "we don't need managers" line.
The article describes a real problem; it speaks to my experience and the experiences of my comrades; but it offers no real solution and is essentially a defense of the status quo. It doesn't preclude a better solution.
So yeah, her solutions may be pretty questionable, but IMO as an industry we're not even at the point of exploring solutions, considering that so much of our industry doesn't even acknowledge the problem exist.
Until then it's useful to keep flogging the essay until people accept that yeah, this problem actually exists.
Do you think this is a good thing? It is not.
I fully agree, but I'm pleased to note that this is the first such 'management is dead' story where multiple commenters have given salient counterpoints (small company, no HR/PR disasters to date, who can fire you, etc), rather than jumping on the bandwaggon.