I can usually spot a company that has too many MBAs. I once heard a teacher say, "There's nothing more useless to an organization than an MBA! Oops, I didn't mean that they way it came out." This was a business school teacher.
I don't believe that, but today, with so many of us knowing the tricks, and what not they teach in these programs; if I owned a company, my MBA count would be low. The accounting/statistics aspect of these programs is fine, but the cheap sales/staff ploys that these programs teach are just irritating, and very noticeable.
People like Catmull of Pixar have tried to write books about this.
Managing creative people - which may include some software people - is not the same as managing a pool of lawyers or accountants.
Software has a problem because too many managers think all software people are interchangeable development units.
In reality there's a universe of psychological difference between corporate biz-logic devs and the kind of creative lunatics who used to work at PARC - and all shadings between the extremes. Put good people in the wrong environment and they'll be worse than useless.
Software has a problem because too many managers think all software people are interchangeable development units.
I've observed that a lot of bad software development managers were previously failed software developers. Perhaps one reason they view us as interchangeable is because developers of that level of quality are indeed interchangeable?
Related to my observation that offshoring can make sense if you note that most corporate development projects fail (not much less than half outright, more than half when you add the "declare victory" messes), and that offshoring is a cheaper way to fail.
I don't believe that, but today, with so many of us knowing the tricks, and what not they teach in these programs; if I owned a company, my MBA count would be low. The accounting/statistics aspect of these programs is fine, but the cheap sales/staff ploys that these programs teach are just irritating, and very noticeable.