Why is the secretary the most expensive resource on the team?

I recently came across fastwhich struck me to the core:

The team lead is the MOST EXPENSIVE resource of the team. And when a team lead sits down to write code, instead of solving his direct problems, he devalues ​​his labor hours. For all sorts of technical things, the team has technical leads, and the task of the team lead is to ensure that the technical leads have everything they need to implement these things.

Lately, more and more often I come across the opinion that a team lead should not write code. And, if about 15 years ago it was just a joke, now this opinion is becoming almost mainstream in the industry. Therefore, I want to clearly formulate my view on this issue.

I have been working in the industry since 1999. Almost 25 years already. And all these years I have been writing code, no matter what positions I am in. And I don’t think it’s anything shameful. Moreover, according to my observations, a leader who does not write code very quickly loses the technological context and begins to make poor technical decisions. In essence, he loses his technical qualifications. And taking into account the speed of development of the industry, the process of loss of qualifications turns out to be very, very rapid.

It's time to start calling a spade a spade. If you don't write code, you lose your technical skills. And if you do not have technical qualifications, then in fact you are not a team lead. I will try to substantiate my thesis.

You can say that you “manage people.” But the essence of the people management process is the delegation of authority. And without the appropriate qualifications, you cannot delegate technical tasks because:

1. You cannot hire an engineer because you are unable to assess his qualifications.

2. You cannot pose a problem to an engineer because you cannot formulate it.

3. You cannot evaluate the quality of the task performed because you do not understand its essence.

4. You cannot assess the adequacy of the deadlines for completing a task, since you cannot assess its complexity.

5. You cannot act as an arbiter in disputes between engineers because you do not understand the essence of these disputes and do not have authority among techies.

6. You can't train the engineers you hire because you have nothing to share with them.

7. You cannot identify technical leaders in the team in order to delegate to them the authority to develop certain areas.

8. You can't make your team “resilient” because you can't measure the true contributions of your engineers. You don’t understand who needs to be kept and who you can calmly say goodbye to. You cannot adequately assess the risks of leaving a particular engineer. And, as a result, you cannot minimize these risks in a timely manner.

Hence the conclusion – you DO NOT manage people. Therefore, you are NOT the team leader (i.e. team lead).

Maybe you want to say that you manage the development process? And this is also not true. Without technical qualifications you:

1. You cannot decompose large technical problems.

2. You cannot adequately prioritize tasks.

3. You cannot predict the deadlines for completing tasks.

4. You cannot assess the degree of risk of the tasks being performed. As a result, you cannot predict and prepare for potential development process crises.

5. You can't even decide on the most suitable development methodology for your project.

Maybe you want to say that you make strategic technical decisions? This is also not true. Because without technical qualifications you:

1. You can't design the architecture yourself.

2. You cannot evaluate the quality of the designed architecture.

3. You cannot select an adequate technology stack to implement the designed architecture.

4. You cannot assess architectural and technological risks.

5. You cannot predict the long-term architectural and technological evolution of the project.

6. And, as a result, you cannot formulate requirements for the qualifications of hired engineers.

So what can you do? It's good if you know the business for which you are developing a technical solution. But then you are not a team lead either – you are a business analyst. Or the product owner.

And if you don’t even know business… Then all you can do is prepare final reports on the work done. Well, maybe draw slides. And that's a stretch. You also cannot present the project. Because you don’t understand the essence of the project and cannot answer any questions that require little technical knowledge.

But then who are you? Yes, you are essentially just a secretary. But then I have a rhetorical question. Why is the secretary the most expensive resource on the team?