"Hey, boss who can fire me, I just thought you should know that we on the team have started keeping metrics. I want you to know that your 'times you made the only girl on the team uncomfortable with a sexist joke' metric is unusually high this month, and your 'unblocked the team by speeding up an external request' metric is 0 for this month, down from 3 times last month"
Let me know if you find any downsides.
Anyway, management will of course argue that developers under them are incapable of seeing everything management does. After all, management's job is to shield developers from other managers, so if the developers think all the managers at the company are worthless, that's actually a sign of how well management did their job of shielding each other's teams from each other.
In many workplaces middle management has already been automated. Algorithms manage Uber drivers. Algorithms manage Amazon warehouse employees.
These companies are even more stratified than before with the lumpenproletariat doing human-mechanized tasks while executives program their lives using software we write in exchange for the unbridled luxuries like the chance to own a roof over our head one day.
AI is actually now shaping up to replace these jobs much more simply than blue collar work.
So, yes absolutely, administrative work now can finally be replaced, and we can free up all the tormented souls in these managerial positions to do something more meaningful with their lives.
We all feel like management contributes nothing, right? But they seem to always be around successful companies. I dunno, correlation isn’t causation, but I think there must be something there.
Weirdly enough, many unsuccessful companies I know of had management too. Correlation isn't causation, but maybe there's something there.
There are also plenty of successful companies and projects without management too. Basically every 1-to-5ish-man consulting shop has zero managers and some of those do wildly well. Some of the best indie games, produced by teams of 3 or 4, had zero dedicated management. Most open source projects have effectively 0 management.
Valve, famously, kept a flat organizational structure for a long time, and certainly was somewhat successful.
>Anyway, management will of course argue that developers under them are incapable of seeing everything management does.
What a coincidence! Thats one of the first thoughts that crept into my head when code metrics started being used on me.
This "voyage of discovery" you've alluded to is exactly what I meant by no downsides.
If managers feels threatened by being measured by their employees after their employees start measuring them, well, that's also an interesting reflection is it not?
Let me know if you find any downsides.
Anyway, management will of course argue that developers under them are incapable of seeing everything management does. After all, management's job is to shield developers from other managers, so if the developers think all the managers at the company are worthless, that's actually a sign of how well management did their job of shielding each other's teams from each other.