Agreed. This debate is useless without discussing the context of company size.
If you’re a manager at a big company with a project that intersects with 5 other teams and you have a dozen people who call themselves stakeholders for your work, you’re not going to have any time to code.
If you’re a manager at a small company where everyone knows each other and team sizes are small, there might be something wrong if your calendar is full of meetings.
I’ve been at a couple small companies that hired big company managers. They felt obligated to create more meetings, documents, and discussions to fill their time and look busy. We finally had to start screening for managers who knew how to fill their time with something productive, whether it’s coding or going out and working with customers.
Generating meetings until your calendar is full is a game in itself at a lot of companies.
If you’re a manager at a big company with a project that intersects with 5 other teams and you have a dozen people who call themselves stakeholders for your work, you’re not going to have any time to code.
If you’re a manager at a small company where everyone knows each other and team sizes are small, there might be something wrong if your calendar is full of meetings.
I’ve been at a couple small companies that hired big company managers. They felt obligated to create more meetings, documents, and discussions to fill their time and look busy. We finally had to start screening for managers who knew how to fill their time with something productive, whether it’s coding or going out and working with customers.
Generating meetings until your calendar is full is a game in itself at a lot of companies.