Joel on cat herders
Can you imagine the phat skilz it takes to manipulate a developer into
doing what you want, while simultaneously appearing to be just a airhead
Club Med Gentile Organizateur? Not only do you have to erase your ego
(“oh, what a smart idea you just had, Mr developer!”) but you have to do
so *while appearing to be a self-centered preppy*. Sean Penn couldn’t
pull off a role like this as well as a merely average Microsoft program
manager.
I knew a few PMs like that at Sapient. Bright guys who played dumb
with the most offensive engineers to make sure everything worked out
all right. (Not to mention giving similar ego massages to the most
offensive clients; Joel doesn’t touch on this in this
thread because he’s talking
largely about product development and not client consulting, but the
skill is invaluable there too.)
I have also known a few project managers to be total assholes to
everybody, of course. Luck of the draw.