It feels like it's been ages since I last created a log entry (maybe because it has). Not a lot has changed in my life, with one exception at work. Last november I decided to take the plunge into management. After 6 or 7 months at that, us managers had a few discussions about some of the problems with the organization.
One of them was that having 2 managers over promotions was a little confusing. I managed (yes, past tense, give me a sec, ok?) the core engine team. We were responsible for system architecture, making sure the discounting engine was able to do the type of things the business wanted. Eric's team was the service and tools team. They were responsible for the interfaces with the other groups in the company. So.. who do you talk to when a new feature is desired? Confused, well, so were others. Along the way I'd also picked up responsibilities for two other subsystems, Giftwrap and Adjustments. I won't go in to what those are, but suffice to say the group organization was getting wierd. There was a third manager, Rich, who was responsible for the TaxEngine.
Having come to the realization that something needed to change, we discussed our options. We also discussed some of the points that were discussed back in November to see how they still applied. One of the November points was that all three of us were new to management and were concerned about having too many people to manage. Dividing the team evenly into 3 groups of 4 felt right. Along the way I picked up a 5th, then lost one and was back to 4. One of the choices was for me to be come the manager of all of promotions, Eric to take the gift, adjustments, and shipping, and Rich would continue with the TaxEngine. The problem there is that GAS would both be a bad team name and a short lived team. There's work for those systems this year, but likely very little next year, so the team wouldn't exist long. Another option was Eric to take Promotions, Rich to take Tax, Adjustments, Gift, and Shipping. I could look for another team to manage. There was the real potential to manage a group that was about to be managerless. That fell through, the team went to another group in the company.
The decision we reached.. I'm very strong technically, and the promotions team needs strong tech people. So, Eric is now the manager of all of Promotions with me as his Tech Lead, just like I was in November, with a slightly larger team than we had then. Rich has Tax, Adjustments, and Giftwrap (yup, the TAG team). Shipping is directly under our manager for now. That team won't exist for more than 6-9 months and will then fold into one or the other of the teams.
Am I happy about the change? People keep asking me this. In some ways, no. In other ways, yes. I really enjoy the technical aspects of the job more than the people aspects. I'll still be doing probably 90% of the same exact things, just with a different job title. I'll be excluded from a few meetings that I enjoyed being in for the information that I was privvy to. Theoretically I'm still privvy to it since nothing terribly special is discussed in most of the upper level all managers meetings, but there's a filter that's placed by hearing things 2nd hand. I told myself before I accepted the position that I'd give it at least a year before I decided if management was what I wanted to be doing or not. It hasn't been that long so I'm still not decided. In another year or so I'll give it another try. For now, I'm where I need to be and where the team needs me to be.