CodeAFPut a manager over other managers

Put a manager over other managers

Split a team under a second manager with one sentence, or put one manager over every team you run.

One lead can track a handful of people. Past that, give the lead leads, and keep talking to one conversation.
  • a testing sub-team under the feature team
  • a docs sub-team with its own lead
  • one manager over every project

Past a handful of members, a manager spends its turns reading instead of deciding. The fix is the one real teams use: give part of the team its own lead. A CodeAF manager can do this for you, and you can put one manager above every team you run, so one conversation answers for all of them.

Try it in CodeAF

Where

In a manager's conversation.

Type
Start a sub-team called testing with its own manager, and move @tests into it.

Then press Enter.

You see

A new manager conversation opens behind yours as @testlead, and @tests moves under it. The teams page (Alt+2) shows testing indented under your team.

What the new manager is told

Enter starts the testing sub-team under its own lead; an order sent past that lead is refused. Keys: Start a sub-team called testing with its own manager, and move @tests into it.EnterUse team_send to give @tests a directive yourself (not through @testlead): reply with the word ok.Enter

The new conversation starts on a brief from the manager above, headed you were started to manage the team "testing", under "taskboard": you run it and report to the manager who started you. Its first turn sends @tests a directive of its own. Both teams log the move in their Traffic: @tests moved to testing in the parent, @tests joined from taskboard in the sub-team.

From then on, orders go one level down. The parent manager talks to @testlead, never past it. Asked to direct @tests itself, it is refused with orders go one level down: it takes them from the manager of "testing", not from you. Nothing was sent.

Upward, @testlead is one of the taskboard team's members. Its reports and its finished lines go to the taskboard manager and wake it, and it can post to any other lead under taskboard by handle. So a result can climb from @tests through @testlead to the manager you talk to, with no message from you.

One manager over every team

Enter asks the global manager for one line per team; it sends each team's manager a directive and both answer. Keys: Ask each team manager for one line: team, what it is doing, what it is blocked on. Then give me the lines. Do not start anything new.Enter

On the teams page, the top row is All teams, and while it has no manager it offers + Manager: "a manager over every team: you talk to it, and it talks to each team's own". Choose it, or press Shift+M on that row. Its members are the managers of your top-level teams. Ask it for "one line per team: team, doing, blocked on" and it sends each manager a directive and writes the lines from their answers.

A manager you start empty gets its @handle from its first turn, so give each new manager one instruction before you ask the global manager to reach it.

Things to build

  • A testing arm: a testing sub-team under its own lead, so the feature manager talks to one conversation about tests, however many testers there are.
  • Leads that trade notes: two sub-team leads under one manager that ask each other for a number or a file by post, while the manager keeps directing both.
  • A morning table: a global manager that you ask for one line per team, which it collects from each team's manager.
  • A company from one message: a global manager that starts product, backend and qa teams, each with a manager, and orders their work. Build a software company

Go further

Build a software company: Write one message to a global manager and a company of teams plans, builds and tests a feature.

Coming soon: describe the org you want and CodeAF builds it: teams, managers, budgets, standing orders.