Member-only story
I never liked the word “Manager”.
On one side, you feel like someone will tell you what to do, like you cannot think. On another, the manager seems randomly appointed to ensure activities continue “business-as-usual”.
The managers required to continuously deliver Quality at Speed are much more different. In a context of accelerated competition, innovation, and uncertainty, their role is not to micromanage routine activities.
I want to share my perspective of what valuable managers do in Quality Engineering. You probably feel my frustration for the manager sitting in his chair operating day-to-day activities.
That irritates me probably due to the waste of resources in contradiction with the Lean mindset of value optimization. In fact, the first goal of a valuable manager is to execute the fundamental management practices efficiently.
The management practices are the basic foundations
A shared frame of reference is essential for a mutual understanding. The perception of management is the first point to clarify. We can then describe what the basic management foundations are.
The definition of manager from various sources is “a person responsible for controlling or…
