Yesterday’s post got me thinking. How did that guy end up being a team lead? And a technical one at that? For those not familiar with the terminology, a technical team lead in the IT (or IT services) industry is supposed to be someone who can not only manage the team and interface with the project, other teams and/or the clients; but can also contribute to the team at a technical level, specifically, coding.
What does it say about the IT sector in India, if this sort of role is filled by someone who can’t even grasp a simple concept after working on it and even contributing to the code, for many months? Granted, most of the business the Indian IT giants do comes from volume and not technological brilliance. But the trend is disturbing. Incompetence actually seems rewarded. Perhaps the only competence such people have is in scraping by and holding on to their jobs.
How do they manage to do that? For one thing, they lean on peers and subordinates to do their work. They need the team members to tell them what to put in an email, and how to phrase it so the client can understand.
The manager above them steps in and manages crisis situations, and the blame usually falls on some poor scapegoat, when 90% of the time the crisis is because of bad people and/or time management, and bad communication. Day to day work in the team goes on because there is usually someone or some people in the team who actually knows what needs to be done and does it. This someone is the actual leader who gets things done, and unfortunately, is usually the one who is blamed when things go wrong. Why? Because this person is earnest and hard-working, and went beyond what was required because of his/her work ethic.
There are, of course, tremendously talented and competent individuals in these kinds of roles, but in general they are found few and far between. Usually it’s people like this guy, who basically just take updates from their team and present it as the result of their management prowess during project update meetings. Well I guess this is why they still have their jobs. Project-level managers are usually people who rose from managing teams to managing projects, so they are mostly the same kind of people. It’s all very clique-y really.
Which brings me to the main issue here, namely, what kind of effect is all this having on the global perception of these companies. The clients obviously feel that these companies can’t be relied upon to do any original work. So most of the projects are maintenance, where one line of code change goes through multiple rounds of review and reams of red tape buries any spark of creativity, brilliance or even productivity after a while. Even when there is design work involved, most of the time the control is with the client. There is very little independent design ongoing, compared to the sheer volume of business coming in from maintenance.
It also perpetuates stereotypes — that of the tongue-tied drone who can only does as he/she is told and has no original thoughts or opinions. That of the boorish semi-educated idiot who can hardly string a sentence together, and certainly cannot grasp even simple concepts. There is an urgent need to recognise that a problem exists here, and start a dialogue to address it.
There are a lot of things wrong with this sector. Glass ceilings, gender discrimination, juniors in the team working hours only a slave would work in other times and places, etc. But if people who know how to do their jobs are in control of teams, the lives of team members will definitely improve, and with that, a gradual improvement can and will take place in other areas too.
What does it say about the IT sector in India, if this sort of role is filled by someone who can’t even grasp a simple concept after working on it and even contributing to the code, for many months? Granted, most of the business the Indian IT giants do comes from volume and not technological brilliance. But the trend is disturbing. Incompetence actually seems rewarded. Perhaps the only competence such people have is in scraping by and holding on to their jobs.
How do they manage to do that? For one thing, they lean on peers and subordinates to do their work. They need the team members to tell them what to put in an email, and how to phrase it so the client can understand.
The manager above them steps in and manages crisis situations, and the blame usually falls on some poor scapegoat, when 90% of the time the crisis is because of bad people and/or time management, and bad communication. Day to day work in the team goes on because there is usually someone or some people in the team who actually knows what needs to be done and does it. This someone is the actual leader who gets things done, and unfortunately, is usually the one who is blamed when things go wrong. Why? Because this person is earnest and hard-working, and went beyond what was required because of his/her work ethic.
There are, of course, tremendously talented and competent individuals in these kinds of roles, but in general they are found few and far between. Usually it’s people like this guy, who basically just take updates from their team and present it as the result of their management prowess during project update meetings. Well I guess this is why they still have their jobs. Project-level managers are usually people who rose from managing teams to managing projects, so they are mostly the same kind of people. It’s all very clique-y really.
Which brings me to the main issue here, namely, what kind of effect is all this having on the global perception of these companies. The clients obviously feel that these companies can’t be relied upon to do any original work. So most of the projects are maintenance, where one line of code change goes through multiple rounds of review and reams of red tape buries any spark of creativity, brilliance or even productivity after a while. Even when there is design work involved, most of the time the control is with the client. There is very little independent design ongoing, compared to the sheer volume of business coming in from maintenance.
It also perpetuates stereotypes — that of the tongue-tied drone who can only does as he/she is told and has no original thoughts or opinions. That of the boorish semi-educated idiot who can hardly string a sentence together, and certainly cannot grasp even simple concepts. There is an urgent need to recognise that a problem exists here, and start a dialogue to address it.
People should have the minimum competence required to do their job without having to take credit for others’ effort.
There are a lot of things wrong with this sector. Glass ceilings, gender discrimination, juniors in the team working hours only a slave would work in other times and places, etc. But if people who know how to do their jobs are in control of teams, the lives of team members will definitely improve, and with that, a gradual improvement can and will take place in other areas too.
In India, you need only influence or reference to get into or manage anything... may be after few years our next generation will not believe that even jobs can be got only with merit...
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