Whew, long time no post.
Hats
I got a new job - VP of Engineering. This means I have to wear two technical hats - both as CTO, my old job, and now as VP of Engineering. I have been having something of an amusing time finding out how different the two roles are, much to my charign.
As CTO, I go out and talk to a lot of customers, partners, and the press. It's my job to be a visionary - to research and understand new markets for Linuxcare, to define and pursue the strategic vision of the company along with the executive team. It also means that it's my job to talk a lot with customers and potential customers and open their eyes to the benefits of open source, and to Linuxcare's role. It involves a lot of sales activity. It is about defining and architecting the future products and services we'll offer. It's a great job.
As VP of Engineering, I have a very different role - I have to have very well defined requirements, specifications, and test plans - and I have to do everything I can to make sure that the engineers know exactly what they are building, for whom, and what their deadlines are. I spend my time talking with the engineers, project managers, and end-customers to make sure that we're on track and that the engineers have all the resources they need. It is my job to reduce their complexity, have well-defined deliverables, and make sure that we're making our dates.
The problems started when I began talking about the sales calls I was going on, describing some of the cool future uses of the projects and technologies we were building. Things got really bad when I brought some of the engineers out on sales calls, and they heard "Dave the CTO" talking to customers. ;-)
What I didn't realize is that I have an interesting ability to hold these two dissonant job descriptions in balance in my mind - The visionary that is describing where we're going to take the customer, where Linucare's competencies are evolving, and the kinds of products and services we'll have in 6 months was scaring the bejesus out of some of the engineers who were wondering, "Omygod, is he expecting me to have that thing built today?"
Lessons Learned
The hard reality hit me in the face when one of the engineers got very hesitant and started asking questions about product definition - at first, I was a bit put off, but after some long discussions with him and the other members of the team, I learned that I wasn't communicating clearly exactly what he and his team were supposed to build RIGHT NOW. Instead it looked like there was scope creep all over the place, and that the entire process was completely unfocused.
Essentially, I wasn't being clear about when I was CTO, and when I was VP of Engineering. And as VP of Engineering, I had to make sure that I was bludgeoning the hell out of the CTO - so that the engineers had clear knowledge of exactly what they were to build, who they were building it for, and when it was due. There is no room for the visionary in that role - it has to be very concrete, making sure that we have well-defined requirements, specs, project plans, etc. Basically, I had to tell the CTO to shut up. ;-)
This has been a really valuable learning experience for me - and I'm really glad that my team has gotten through this with me with mostly chuckles and good natured barbs. I'm really grateful that they showed me where I was fucking up.
So now I'm trying to be really clear about when I'm speaking as CTO, and when I'm speaking as VP of Engineering. I hope the folks continue to keep me honest on that front...