1.. _managementstyle:
2
3Linux kernel management style
4=============================
5
6This is a short document describing the preferred (or made up, depending
7on who you ask) management style for the linux kernel.  It's meant to
8mirror the process/coding-style.rst document to some degree, and mainly written to
9avoid answering [#f1]_  the same (or similar) questions over and over again.
10
11Management style is very personal and much harder to quantify than
12simple coding style rules, so this document may or may not have anything
13to do with reality.  It started as a lark, but that doesn't mean that it
14might not actually be true. You'll have to decide for yourself.
15
16Btw, when talking about "kernel manager", it's all about the technical
17lead persons, not the people who do traditional management inside
18companies.  If you sign purchase orders or you have any clue about the
19budget of your group, you're almost certainly not a kernel manager.
20These suggestions may or may not apply to you.
21
22First off, I'd suggest buying "Seven Habits of Highly Effective
23People", and NOT read it.  Burn it, it's a great symbolic gesture.
24
25.. [#f1] This document does so not so much by answering the question, but by
26  making it painfully obvious to the questioner that we don't have a clue
27  to what the answer is.
28
29Anyway, here goes:
30
31.. _decisions:
32
331) Decisions
34------------
35
36Everybody thinks managers make decisions, and that decision-making is
37important.  The bigger and more painful the decision, the bigger the
38manager must be to make it.  That's very deep and obvious, but it's not
39actually true.
40
41The name of the game is to **avoid** having to make a decision.  In
42particular, if somebody tells you "choose (a) or (b), we really need you
43to decide on this", you're in trouble as a manager.  The people you
44manage had better know the details better than you, so if they come to
45you for a technical decision, you're screwed.  You're clearly not
46competent to make that decision for them.
47
48(Corollary:if the people you manage don't know the details better than
49you, you're also screwed, although for a totally different reason.
50Namely that you are in the wrong job, and that **they** should be managing
51your brilliance instead).
52
53So the name of the game is to **avoid** decisions, at least the big and
54painful ones.  Making small and non-consequential decisions is fine, and
55makes you look like you know what you're doing, so what a kernel manager
56needs to do is to turn the big and painful ones into small things where
57nobody really cares.
58
59It helps to realize that the key difference between a big decision and a
60small one is whether you can fix your decision afterwards.  Any decision
61can be made small by just always making sure that if you were wrong (and
62you **will** be wrong), you can always undo the damage later by
63backtracking.  Suddenly, you get to be doubly managerial for making
64**two** inconsequential decisions - the wrong one **and** the right one.
65
66And people will even see that as true leadership (*cough* bullshit
67*cough*).
68
69Thus the key to avoiding big decisions becomes to just avoiding to do
70things that can't be undone.  Don't get ushered into a corner from which
71you cannot escape.  A cornered rat may be dangerous - a cornered manager
72is just pitiful.
73
74It turns out that since nobody would be stupid enough to ever really let
75a kernel manager have huge fiscal responsibility **anyway**, it's usually
76fairly easy to backtrack.  Since you're not going to be able to waste
77huge amounts of money that you might not be able to repay, the only
78thing you can backtrack on is a technical decision, and there
79back-tracking is very easy: just tell everybody that you were an
80incompetent nincompoop, say you're sorry, and undo all the worthless
81work you had people work on for the last year.  Suddenly the decision
82you made a year ago wasn't a big decision after all, since it could be
83easily undone.
84
85It turns out that some people have trouble with this approach, for two
86reasons:
87
88 - admitting you were an idiot is harder than it looks.  We all like to
89   maintain appearances, and coming out in public to say that you were
90   wrong is sometimes very hard indeed.
91 - having somebody tell you that what you worked on for the last year
92   wasn't worthwhile after all can be hard on the poor lowly engineers
93   too, and while the actual **work** was easy enough to undo by just
94   deleting it, you may have irrevocably lost the trust of that
95   engineer.  And remember: "irrevocable" was what we tried to avoid in
96   the first place, and your decision ended up being a big one after
97   all.
98
99Happily, both of these reasons can be mitigated effectively by just
100admitting up-front that you don't have a friggin' clue, and telling
101people ahead of the fact that your decision is purely preliminary, and
102might be the wrong thing.  You should always reserve the right to change
103your mind, and make people very **aware** of that.  And it's much easier
104to admit that you are stupid when you haven't **yet** done the really
105stupid thing.
106
107Then, when it really does turn out to be stupid, people just roll their
108eyes and say "Oops, he did it again".
109
110This preemptive admission of incompetence might also make the people who
111actually do the work also think twice about whether it's worth doing or
112not.  After all, if **they** aren't certain whether it's a good idea, you
113sure as hell shouldn't encourage them by promising them that what they
114work on will be included.  Make them at least think twice before they
115embark on a big endeavor.
116
117Remember: they'd better know more about the details than you do, and
118they usually already think they have the answer to everything.  The best
119thing you can do as a manager is not to instill confidence, but rather a
120healthy dose of critical thinking on what they do.
121
122Btw, another way to avoid a decision is to plaintively just whine "can't
123we just do both?" and look pitiful.  Trust me, it works.  If it's not
124clear which approach is better, they'll eventually figure it out.  The
125answer may end up being that both teams get so frustrated by the
126situation that they just give up.
127
128That may sound like a failure, but it's usually a sign that there was
129something wrong with both projects, and the reason the people involved
130couldn't decide was that they were both wrong.  You end up coming up
131smelling like roses, and you avoided yet another decision that you could
132have screwed up on.
133
134
1352) People
136---------
137
138Most people are idiots, and being a manager means you'll have to deal
139with it, and perhaps more importantly, that **they** have to deal with
140**you**.
141
142It turns out that while it's easy to undo technical mistakes, it's not
143as easy to undo personality disorders.  You just have to live with
144theirs - and yours.
145
146However, in order to prepare yourself as a kernel manager, it's best to
147remember not to burn any bridges, bomb any innocent villagers, or
148alienate too many kernel developers. It turns out that alienating people
149is fairly easy, and un-alienating them is hard. Thus "alienating"
150immediately falls under the heading of "not reversible", and becomes a
151no-no according to :ref:`decisions`.
152
153There's just a few simple rules here:
154
155 (1) don't call people d*ckheads (at least not in public)
156 (2) learn how to apologize when you forgot rule (1)
157
158The problem with #1 is that it's very easy to do, since you can say
159"you're a d*ckhead" in millions of different ways [#f2]_, sometimes without
160even realizing it, and almost always with a white-hot conviction that
161you are right.
162
163And the more convinced you are that you are right (and let's face it,
164you can call just about **anybody** a d*ckhead, and you often **will** be
165right), the harder it ends up being to apologize afterwards.
166
167To solve this problem, you really only have two options:
168
169 - get really good at apologies
170 - spread the "love" out so evenly that nobody really ends up feeling
171   like they get unfairly targeted.  Make it inventive enough, and they
172   might even be amused.
173
174The option of being unfailingly polite really doesn't exist. Nobody will
175trust somebody who is so clearly hiding his true character.
176
177.. [#f2] Paul Simon sang "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover", because quite
178  frankly, "A Million Ways to Tell a Developer He Is a D*ckhead" doesn't
179  scan nearly as well.  But I'm sure he thought about it.
180
181
1823) People II - the Good Kind
183----------------------------
184
185While it turns out that most people are idiots, the corollary to that is
186sadly that you are one too, and that while we can all bask in the secure
187knowledge that we're better than the average person (let's face it,
188nobody ever believes that they're average or below-average), we should
189also admit that we're not the sharpest knife around, and there will be
190other people that are less of an idiot than you are.
191
192Some people react badly to smart people.  Others take advantage of them.
193
194Make sure that you, as a kernel maintainer, are in the second group.
195Suck up to them, because they are the people who will make your job
196easier. In particular, they'll be able to make your decisions for you,
197which is what the game is all about.
198
199So when you find somebody smarter than you are, just coast along.  Your
200management responsibilities largely become ones of saying "Sounds like a
201good idea - go wild", or "That sounds good, but what about xxx?".  The
202second version in particular is a great way to either learn something
203new about "xxx" or seem **extra** managerial by pointing out something the
204smarter person hadn't thought about.  In either case, you win.
205
206One thing to look out for is to realize that greatness in one area does
207not necessarily translate to other areas.  So you might prod people in
208specific directions, but let's face it, they might be good at what they
209do, and suck at everything else.  The good news is that people tend to
210naturally gravitate back to what they are good at, so it's not like you
211are doing something irreversible when you **do** prod them in some
212direction, just don't push too hard.
213
214
2154) Placing blame
216----------------
217
218Things will go wrong, and people want somebody to blame. Tag, you're it.
219
220It's not actually that hard to accept the blame, especially if people
221kind of realize that it wasn't **all** your fault.  Which brings us to the
222best way of taking the blame: do it for another guy. You'll feel good
223for taking the fall, he'll feel good about not getting blamed, and the
224guy who lost his whole 36GB porn-collection because of your incompetence
225will grudgingly admit that you at least didn't try to weasel out of it.
226
227Then make the developer who really screwed up (if you can find him) know
228**in_private** that he screwed up.  Not just so he can avoid it in the
229future, but so that he knows he owes you one.  And, perhaps even more
230importantly, he's also likely the person who can fix it.  Because, let's
231face it, it sure ain't you.
232
233Taking the blame is also why you get to be manager in the first place.
234It's part of what makes people trust you, and allow you the potential
235glory, because you're the one who gets to say "I screwed up".  And if
236you've followed the previous rules, you'll be pretty good at saying that
237by now.
238
239
2405) Things to avoid
241------------------
242
243There's one thing people hate even more than being called "d*ckhead",
244and that is being called a "d*ckhead" in a sanctimonious voice.  The
245first you can apologize for, the second one you won't really get the
246chance.  They likely will no longer be listening even if you otherwise
247do a good job.
248
249We all think we're better than anybody else, which means that when
250somebody else puts on airs, it **really** rubs us the wrong way.  You may
251be morally and intellectually superior to everybody around you, but
252don't try to make it too obvious unless you really **intend** to irritate
253somebody [#f3]_.
254
255Similarly, don't be too polite or subtle about things. Politeness easily
256ends up going overboard and hiding the problem, and as they say, "On the
257internet, nobody can hear you being subtle". Use a big blunt object to
258hammer the point in, because you can't really depend on people getting
259your point otherwise.
260
261Some humor can help pad both the bluntness and the moralizing.  Going
262overboard to the point of being ridiculous can drive a point home
263without making it painful to the recipient, who just thinks you're being
264silly.  It can thus help get through the personal mental block we all
265have about criticism.
266
267.. [#f3] Hint: internet newsgroups that are not directly related to your work
268  are great ways to take out your frustrations at other people. Write
269  insulting posts with a sneer just to get into a good flame every once in
270  a while, and you'll feel cleansed. Just don't crap too close to home.
271
272
2736) Why me?
274----------
275
276Since your main responsibility seems to be to take the blame for other
277peoples mistakes, and make it painfully obvious to everybody else that
278you're incompetent, the obvious question becomes one of why do it in the
279first place?
280
281First off, while you may or may not get screaming teenage girls (or
282boys, let's not be judgmental or sexist here) knocking on your dressing
283room door, you **will** get an immense feeling of personal accomplishment
284for being "in charge".  Never mind the fact that you're really leading
285by trying to keep up with everybody else and running after them as fast
286as you can.  Everybody will still think you're the person in charge.
287
288It's a great job if you can hack it.
289