What is management?
Management is the body of people who perform the functions of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, motivating and controlling resources and efforts of people to attain goals
Management is defined as:
the art of getting things done through and with people in organized groups towards common objectives
a process of decision making and control over actions and activities for the purpose of attaining goals
a multipurpose organ that manages worker and work (Peter Drucker)
knowing exactly what you want individual contributors to do and then seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way
a task of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, motivating and controlling the efforts of others towards specific objectives
We can conclude that management can be split into:
an art
a process
an organ
a task
of:
getting things done
decision making
knowing what to do
planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, motivating and controlling
with:
organized groups
actions and activities
workers and work
the efforts of others
individual contributors
for:
specific and common objectives
attaining goals
Management is a function that uses resources, with people, to attain goals – my definition.
If management is an art, then it is a creative and learning process.
It can be observed outside the organization, when something cannot be done by 1 person, alone. If it requires 2 or more contributors, coordination of actions and activities is necessary. Actions and activities are split among the available contributors. For maximum efficiency, actions are executed in parallel and finished at the same time. If one contributor is idle, maximum efficiency is lost.
Generally, management is responsible of the actions executed and the overall goal attainment. The responsibility comes from the mandate to direct contributors’ efforts and allocated resources.
Planning starts when a goal cannot be attained with 1 simple action. Plans, in general are evolving. To evolve a plan is to respond to new information. New information has 2 sources:
inside the working group – when planning future actions to be executed, each outcome of an action must bring the working group closer to the goal. The effectiveness of the planned actions depends on the expertise of the manager and the working group. Some actions have a variable outcome that cannot be accurately predicted when planning – it can be considered learning or investigation. The outcome of the action that cannot be correctly predicted can be insufficient or more abundant – it affects future planned actions to be executed:
When the outcome is insufficient, planning needs to be reconfigured to bring the sufficient outcome.
When the outcome is more abundant, planning needs to be reconfigured because some future actions might be redundant.
In both cases, plan refinement is necessary
outside the working group – the goal changes or is redefined (more precisely or extended) – generally, stakeholders, based on their new information, can change the goal – more commonly called “moving target”
Changes that come from outside the working group (stakeholders) usually need to be accepted by the working group. Acceptance has 2 forms:
changes can be absorbed with minimal impact
changes have consequences to the milestones or plan – these consequences need to be either addressed (reduction of scope, delaying milestones or adding of resources or contributors – more on this later) by the stakeholders or accepted as potential future risks
An effective manager is one that coordinates resources and contributors without one or the other being idle. Idleness can have multiple sources. A plan can be executed in parallel in the limit of contributors and resources. Action outcomes (milestones) are serial. Some outcomes are enablers for future actions, others are finite and standalone. For the manager to be effective and their resources and contributors to not sit idle, they must make sure that future resources are prepared to not block the start or continuation of executing future actions. Through this lens, management is a supporting function. As management does not contribute to the execution of actions per se, it must make resources available, on time, when they are requested or expected by contributors. As this requires information collection and processing, management needs to make sure it has latest and valid information from the working group for making decisions, predicting and ensuring future needs are met.
When the working group is enabled to execute actions in parallel and attain milestones in a serial manner, they gain momentum. Through the systems thinking lens, it is a system that optimizes itself. The manager is the designer of the system. The system has a goal and, when momentum exists, inefficiencies are absorbed by the working group. Management can be seen as the integrator of contributors and resources, in the context of a system. System design is always adapted to the resources and contributors available, so no system can be copied and used directly, although there are similarities. When the execution system has design flaws, resources go unused and contributors sit idle.
Management, as a skill, can be seen as an economic resource, same as labor, capital and natural resources. As management is overall responsible, it bears authority over goal completion and execution. Using authority, it enforces the limitations of the goal, in a decisive manner, sometimes aggressively – directing execution, enforcing policies or saying “no”.
Management has a purpose. When the purpose is met, management is not needed anymore. Management is at the intersection of the working group, resources and stakeholders while the executing system is being set up. Over-managing creates inefficiencies. If it works, don’t fix it.
Goals can be of different kinds. There are two types of goals:
attaining a goal (wartime)
starting knowledge is incomplete
attaining a goal in a more efficient way (peacetime)
Although they seem to overlap, they do not. The first time when a goal is attained, certain mechanisms are used. In the process of attaining a goal in a more efficient way, other mechanisms need to be used:
how can we do this
starting knowledge is incomplete
how can we do this faster or better (in any way)
when something needs to be done faster, a means of comparison is required – it can be compared to the wartime execution or with the previous iteration
Management is not the goal owner and managers typically have no skin in the game. A manager should not have a personal incentive in the goal itself, just in the goal attainment. Stakeholders own the goal. Stakeholders are any individuals or groups of people that have personal interest in the goal itself (customers, for example). If a goal is a decision, then management executes on the decisions of stakeholders.
Management does not interfere in conflict inside the working group, or in the conflict of the working group with stakeholders. It facilitates the resolution of the conflicting parties – commonly called alignment. Alignment is the clarification of limitations, constraints and boundaries of the goal.
When management typically makes decisions, it is free to do so in the boundary of the goal. If the goal is clear to the manager, decisions are lightning fast. When decisions cannot be made, the stakeholder decides, usually with the same method (goal clarity). The mandate for management decision making is given in alignment with the goal. A manager is free to make any decision they want if the goal is attained. With great power comes great responsibility.
A manager’s execution is regularly controlled. This is commonly called reporting. When planning is communicated initially, milestones are set to be expected. Stakeholder management is expectation management. A manager gets daily updates on execution, but stakeholders get updates less often. Transparency is important in terms of messages that are communicated. Details are needed usually when milestones are at risk.
When risk can be predicted or suddenly appears, planning needs to be reconfigured. Some risks can be absorbed by the working group with minimal delay, but other risks need to be addressed when asking for help. When a catastrophic risk is predicted, the manager is expected to address the risk with available mechanisms. There are multiple mechanisms available, but some are more common than others:
asking for help – more resources, contributors etc
milestones are not delayed, scope is not reduced
reduction of scope (goal redesign)
milestones are not delayed, but scope is reduced
delaying of a milestone with the expectation to catch up
when this is accepted, the manager should expect closer stakeholder monitoring of execution
milestones are delayed and workload of the working group will increase – given the present momentum it can sometimes be absorbed, with little impact
Risk management solutions should come bottom up – from the working group, or, if the manager is not prepared with a sound bottom-up solution, expectations holders(stakeholders) impose certain measures on the working group. This usually disrupts momentum and creates certain forms of inefficiencies.
Management addresses daily needs of the working group and makes sure information is clearly communicated to all interested parties. Granularity of information is decided depending on the recipient of communication.
Management motivates the working group by addressing their concerns. From inside the working group, the manager gets information on current inefficiencies and consequences (some consequences pose a future risk). If concerns of the working group are regularly addressed, trust is formed, and momentum is built up. Concerns are usually about the conditions of the working group execution. Again, management is a supporting function.