.. _managementstyle:

  Linux kernel management style
  =============================

  
  This is a short document describing the preferred (or made up, depending
  on who you ask) management style for the linux kernel.  It's meant to
  mirror the CodingStyle document to some degree, and mainly written to

  avoid answering [#f1]_  the same (or similar) questions over and over again.

  
  Management style is very personal and much harder to quantify than
  simple coding style rules, so this document may or may not have anything
  to do with reality.  It started as a lark, but that doesn't mean that it
  might not actually be true. You'll have to decide for yourself.
  
  Btw, when talking about "kernel manager", it's all about the technical
  lead persons, not the people who do traditional management inside
  companies.  If you sign purchase orders or you have any clue about the

  budget of your group, you're almost certainly not a kernel manager.
  These suggestions may or may not apply to you.

  First off, I'd suggest buying "Seven Habits of Highly Effective

  People", and NOT read it.  Burn it, it's a great symbolic gesture.

  .. [#f1] This document does so not so much by answering the question, but by
    making it painfully obvious to the questioner that we don't have a clue
    to what the answer is.

  
  Anyway, here goes:

  .. _decisions:

  1) Decisions
  ------------

  
  Everybody thinks managers make decisions, and that decision-making is
  important.  The bigger and more painful the decision, the bigger the
  manager must be to make it.  That's very deep and obvious, but it's not

  actually true.

  The name of the game is to **avoid** having to make a decision.  In

  particular, if somebody tells you "choose (a) or (b), we really need you
  to decide on this", you're in trouble as a manager.  The people you
  manage had better know the details better than you, so if they come to
  you for a technical decision, you're screwed.  You're clearly not

  competent to make that decision for them.

  
  (Corollary:if the people you manage don't know the details better than

  you, you're also screwed, although for a totally different reason.
  Namely that you are in the wrong job, and that **they** should be managing
  your brilliance instead).

  So the name of the game is to **avoid** decisions, at least the big and

  painful ones.  Making small and non-consequential decisions is fine, and
  makes you look like you know what you're doing, so what a kernel manager
  needs to do is to turn the big and painful ones into small things where

  nobody really cares.

  
  It helps to realize that the key difference between a big decision and a
  small one is whether you can fix your decision afterwards.  Any decision
  can be made small by just always making sure that if you were wrong (and

  you **will** be wrong), you can always undo the damage later by

  backtracking.  Suddenly, you get to be doubly managerial for making

  **two** inconsequential decisions - the wrong one **and** the right one.

  
  And people will even see that as true leadership (*cough* bullshit
  *cough*).
  
  Thus the key to avoiding big decisions becomes to just avoiding to do
  things that can't be undone.  Don't get ushered into a corner from which
  you cannot escape.  A cornered rat may be dangerous - a cornered manager

  is just pitiful.

  
  It turns out that since nobody would be stupid enough to ever really let

  a kernel manager have huge fiscal responsibility **anyway**, it's usually

  fairly easy to backtrack.  Since you're not going to be able to waste
  huge amounts of money that you might not be able to repay, the only
  thing you can backtrack on is a technical decision, and there
  back-tracking is very easy: just tell everybody that you were an
  incompetent nincompoop, say you're sorry, and undo all the worthless
  work you had people work on for the last year.  Suddenly the decision
  you made a year ago wasn't a big decision after all, since it could be

  easily undone.

  
  It turns out that some people have trouble with this approach, for two
  reasons:

   - admitting you were an idiot is harder than it looks.  We all like to
     maintain appearances, and coming out in public to say that you were

     wrong is sometimes very hard indeed.

   - having somebody tell you that what you worked on for the last year
     wasn't worthwhile after all can be hard on the poor lowly engineers

     too, and while the actual **work** was easy enough to undo by just

     deleting it, you may have irrevocably lost the trust of that
     engineer.  And remember: "irrevocable" was what we tried to avoid in
     the first place, and your decision ended up being a big one after

     all.

  
  Happily, both of these reasons can be mitigated effectively by just
  admitting up-front that you don't have a friggin' clue, and telling
  people ahead of the fact that your decision is purely preliminary, and
  might be the wrong thing.  You should always reserve the right to change

  your mind, and make people very **aware** of that.  And it's much easier
  to admit that you are stupid when you haven't **yet** done the really

  stupid thing.
  
  Then, when it really does turn out to be stupid, people just roll their

  eyes and say "Oops, he did it again".

  
  This preemptive admission of incompetence might also make the people who
  actually do the work also think twice about whether it's worth doing or

  not.  After all, if **they** aren't certain whether it's a good idea, you

  sure as hell shouldn't encourage them by promising them that what they
  work on will be included.  Make them at least think twice before they

  embark on a big endeavor.

  
  Remember: they'd better know more about the details than you do, and
  they usually already think they have the answer to everything.  The best
  thing you can do as a manager is not to instill confidence, but rather a

  healthy dose of critical thinking on what they do.

  
  Btw, another way to avoid a decision is to plaintively just whine "can't
  we just do both?" and look pitiful.  Trust me, it works.  If it's not
  clear which approach is better, they'll eventually figure it out.  The
  answer may end up being that both teams get so frustrated by the

  situation that they just give up.

  
  That may sound like a failure, but it's usually a sign that there was
  something wrong with both projects, and the reason the people involved
  couldn't decide was that they were both wrong.  You end up coming up
  smelling like roses, and you avoided yet another decision that you could

  have screwed up on.

  2) People
  ---------

  
  Most people are idiots, and being a manager means you'll have to deal

  with it, and perhaps more importantly, that **they** have to deal with
  **you**.

  
  It turns out that while it's easy to undo technical mistakes, it's not
  as easy to undo personality disorders.  You just have to live with

  theirs - and yours.

  
  However, in order to prepare yourself as a kernel manager, it's best to
  remember not to burn any bridges, bomb any innocent villagers, or
  alienate too many kernel developers. It turns out that alienating people
  is fairly easy, and un-alienating them is hard. Thus "alienating"
  immediately falls under the heading of "not reversible", and becomes a

  no-no according to :ref:`decisions`.

  
  There's just a few simple rules here:

   (1) don't call people d*ckheads (at least not in public)
   (2) learn how to apologize when you forgot rule (1)
  
  The problem with #1 is that it's very easy to do, since you can say

  "you're a d*ckhead" in millions of different ways [#f2]_, sometimes without

  even realizing it, and almost always with a white-hot conviction that

  you are right.

  
  And the more convinced you are that you are right (and let's face it,

  you can call just about **anybody** a d*ckhead, and you often **will** be
  right), the harder it ends up being to apologize afterwards.

  
  To solve this problem, you really only have two options:

   - get really good at apologies
   - spread the "love" out so evenly that nobody really ends up feeling
     like they get unfairly targeted.  Make it inventive enough, and they

     might even be amused.

  
  The option of being unfailingly polite really doesn't exist. Nobody will
  trust somebody who is so clearly hiding his true character.

  .. [#f2] Paul Simon sang "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover", because quite
    frankly, "A Million Ways to Tell a Developer He Is a D*ckhead" doesn't
    scan nearly as well.  But I'm sure he thought about it.

  3) People II - the Good Kind
  ----------------------------

  
  While it turns out that most people are idiots, the corollary to that is
  sadly that you are one too, and that while we can all bask in the secure
  knowledge that we're better than the average person (let's face it,
  nobody ever believes that they're average or below-average), we should
  also admit that we're not the sharpest knife around, and there will be

  other people that are less of an idiot than you are.

  Some people react badly to smart people.  Others take advantage of them.

  Make sure that you, as a kernel maintainer, are in the second group.

  Suck up to them, because they are the people who will make your job
  easier. In particular, they'll be able to make your decisions for you,
  which is what the game is all about.
  
  So when you find somebody smarter than you are, just coast along.  Your
  management responsibilities largely become ones of saying "Sounds like a
  good idea - go wild", or "That sounds good, but what about xxx?".  The
  second version in particular is a great way to either learn something

  new about "xxx" or seem **extra** managerial by pointing out something the

  smarter person hadn't thought about.  In either case, you win.
  
  One thing to look out for is to realize that greatness in one area does
  not necessarily translate to other areas.  So you might prod people in
  specific directions, but let's face it, they might be good at what they
  do, and suck at everything else.  The good news is that people tend to
  naturally gravitate back to what they are good at, so it's not like you

  are doing something irreversible when you **do** prod them in some

  direction, just don't push too hard.

  4) Placing blame
  ----------------

  
  Things will go wrong, and people want somebody to blame. Tag, you're it.
  
  It's not actually that hard to accept the blame, especially if people

  kind of realize that it wasn't **all** your fault.  Which brings us to the

  best way of taking the blame: do it for another guy. You'll feel good
  for taking the fall, he'll feel good about not getting blamed, and the
  guy who lost his whole 36GB porn-collection because of your incompetence
  will grudgingly admit that you at least didn't try to weasel out of it.
  
  Then make the developer who really screwed up (if you can find him) know

  **in_private** that he screwed up.  Not just so he can avoid it in the

  future, but so that he knows he owes you one.  And, perhaps even more
  importantly, he's also likely the person who can fix it.  Because, let's

  face it, it sure ain't you.

  Taking the blame is also why you get to be manager in the first place.

  It's part of what makes people trust you, and allow you the potential
  glory, because you're the one who gets to say "I screwed up".  And if
  you've followed the previous rules, you'll be pretty good at saying that

  by now.

  5) Things to avoid
  ------------------

  
  There's one thing people hate even more than being called "d*ckhead",
  and that is being called a "d*ckhead" in a sanctimonious voice.  The
  first you can apologize for, the second one you won't really get the
  chance.  They likely will no longer be listening even if you otherwise

  do a good job.

  
  We all think we're better than anybody else, which means that when

  somebody else puts on airs, it **really** rubs us the wrong way.  You may

  be morally and intellectually superior to everybody around you, but

  don't try to make it too obvious unless you really **intend** to irritate
  somebody [#f3]_.

  
  Similarly, don't be too polite or subtle about things. Politeness easily
  ends up going overboard and hiding the problem, and as they say, "On the
  internet, nobody can hear you being subtle". Use a big blunt object to
  hammer the point in, because you can't really depend on people getting
  your point otherwise.
  
  Some humor can help pad both the bluntness and the moralizing.  Going
  overboard to the point of being ridiculous can drive a point home
  without making it painful to the recipient, who just thinks you're being
  silly.  It can thus help get through the personal mental block we all

  have about criticism.

  .. [#f3] Hint: internet newsgroups that are not directly related to your work
    are great ways to take out your frustrations at other people. Write
    insulting posts with a sneer just to get into a good flame every once in
    a while, and you'll feel cleansed. Just don't crap too close to home.

  6) Why me?
  ----------

  
  Since your main responsibility seems to be to take the blame for other
  peoples mistakes, and make it painfully obvious to everybody else that
  you're incompetent, the obvious question becomes one of why do it in the
  first place?
  
  First off, while you may or may not get screaming teenage girls (or
  boys, let's not be judgmental or sexist here) knocking on your dressing

  room door, you **will** get an immense feeling of personal accomplishment

  for being "in charge".  Never mind the fact that you're really leading
  by trying to keep up with everybody else and running after them as fast

  as you can.  Everybody will still think you're the person in charge.

  
  It's a great job if you can hack it.