Mushroom Management
posted by Anna Mar, January 11, 2011The secret to growing mushrooms is to keep them in the dark and throw manure on top once in a while.
Antipattern
The Mushroom Manager:- avoids sharing information with the team
- attempts to control the decision making process
- makes commitments without consulting the team
- may make solution decisions without consulting the team
- often has a bad relationship with the team
These characteristics often land the Mushroom Manager in trouble. When in trouble the Mushroom Manager is likely to:
- make unreasonable demands of the team
- blame the team
Solution
If you are stuck on a project lead by a Mushroom Manager(MM) — your project is likely in trouble.You need to carefully manage your commitments with this manager. MM is likely to give you work that seems to have no deadline — and then suddenly demand completion (implying that you are late).
Never accept any work (or scope creep) from a Mushroom Manager without careful specification of the scope and negotiation of milestone dates. You need to be diligent to manage even the most vaguely implied commitments.
MM is likely to make promises about solutions without consulting architects and SMEs. The MM may try to pass these to the team as "requirements" from the "users". In many cases the MM does not have the experience or qualifications to make such solution decisions.
If you are putting your name to a artifact or deliverable you need to be comfortable with it. If you are not comfortable with it — you need to document your concerns (you should probably escalate).
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