A New/Old Adventure

I received an ad-hoc meeting request with two managers. I wasn’t sure if the fact my line manager isn’t involved is a good thing or a bad thing.

One manager, Chris, explains that the business has acknowledged that our new software (currently in development) hasn’t really gone to plan. It’s nowhere near complete and Chris reckons our current software still has a good few years left in it and needs supporting. 

The problem is; over the last few years, more developers have gradually switched over to work on the new product and now there’s a bit of panic that we don’t have the resources to adequately support the current product.

He plans to create a new team and lead it, and he wants me to be involved. Together, both managers explain that my ability and knowledge are a good fit for this team, and they could easily see me progressing and would be promoted quickly. They expect me to lead a sub team.

I am really tempted by this suggestion of promotion. It’s what I need, and probably should have had years ago. However, it ain’t in writing and is probably just a false promise. However, my current project does suck and I have lost motivation.

Also, I’m not impressed with my new line manager. Switching to this new team would mean Chris will be my manager and he does give me a really good impression. He seems passionate and organised, and doesn’t throw business jargon around to make everything sound important.

I still had reservations. The other manager detects the uncertainty in my responses. “What’s on your mind?” he says.

“Well, the good developers will want to work on the new, exciting product with all the new technology. Who would go back to work on our “old” product? Surely it’s going to be a team full of failures? People who can’t handle the ‘new world’.”

He laughs. “Oh, no, there’s some great people that have signed up already. Many are seniors.”

Now, I’m beginning to uncover their lies here. How can I lead a team if there are already loads of seniors involved?

Either:

• There’s no seniors, and I can lead them
• There’s seniors, but they are failed seniors. They know they can’t handle seniority, and will let me lead them
• There are seniors, and it was a lie about me leading anything

I was also sceptical of my ability to learn new things. At least with my current project I was learning new programming languages. Going back to the old product is just working with stuff I already know. Chris did say there’s some cool projects coming up, and has the potential of using exciting tools/languages; but I remain sceptical.

I thought about it, and even though this Team/idea probably contains at least one big lie – I accepted the challenge. Hopefully if I get a promotion, then at least I can take the hit of the team sucking.

I fully expect I will be working with failures. I expect Colin and Beavis to be there as Developers, alongside some of the worst testers. There will be more idiots to pad out the numbers I’m sure. But if that’s true, then that’s brilliant news for the blog. There will be plenty of stories in this new team.