Ask HN: How to deal with managers who set a hard time-limit on fixing a bug?

Re:Ask HN: How to deal with managers who set a hard time-lim... by bwh2 on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @10:21AM (#27037877)

Earlier in my career, I would hear my manager say something about a specific situation and I would extrapolate that into a general belief and theoretical/academic debate that frustrated everyone. Make sure you're not doing that.

As a manager, sometimes you need to say things like, "This bug needs to be fixed by EOD tomorrow" so that your team understands the urgency and your expectations. The more technical the manager, the more likely they can understand whether that expectation is reasonable.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to deal with managers who set a hard time-lim... by decebalus1 on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @12:58PM (#27052472)

> As a manager, sometimes you need to say things like, "This bug needs to be fixed by EOD tomorrow" so that your team understands the urgency and your expectations.

I'm sorry but you can do that without sounding both clueless and unreasonable. You can put everything else on hold, stop the line, explain why it's important for this to be fixed, etc.. to get the point across.

"This bug needs to be fixed by EOD tomorrow" would chip away at the trust I have with management and depending on other factors would lead me to brush up my resume...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to deal with managers who set a hard time-lim... by tyingq on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @01:03PM (#27052542)

I agree, and I've been the manager in this situation. There's some reason he's saying "EOD tomorrow", so he should just share that. Like "It's likely we will lose this customer if this isn't fixed by EOD tomorrow...so please make this the only thing we're working until then".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to deal with managers who set a hard time-lim... by sdgasg on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @05:50PM (#27056275)

Usually, you don't lose a customer over a bug in two days. Customers are reasonable usually and understand that it takes time to fix bugs. Most of other reasons like CEO doing a demo at a conference can also be managed. I really don't see a reason for hard deadlines ever. In fact, hard deadlines is sign of bad management with notable exception of startups and other young companies with no managers or new managers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to deal with managers who set a hard time-lim... by tyingq on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @07:38PM (#27057327)

Sharing the reason allows for that debate, or alternatives. Maybe the customer has some sort of demo or something, and you could offer a workaround in that case.

Hard deadlines for some sort of fix or workaround do exist. Like "Earnings Call Tommorrow, and I can't just say ' I Dunno'"

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to deal with managers who set a hard time-lim... by sdgasg on Thursday May 06, 2021 @11:17AM (#27064509)

I agree with statement "Hard deadlines for some sort of fix or workaround do exist". Key being get this done before CEO's big presentation or hard code something or CEO doesn't demo this feature. The point is no one dies if CEO doesn't demo it or feature is not complete by earnings call. Earnings call is known event, one should have better planned for it.

And that bring me to people literally dying because of bugs in software like in cars or medical devices etc. That might be one time where I would have no problem sacrificing my family time for getting bug fixed. But most other situations are just artificial and deserve no extra stress.

[ Parent | on HN ]