Multiplayer, hyper-collaborative tools like Figma, Google Sheets, Replit… are built with the Maker in mind. They create rich, vertical contexts for designers, developers, analysts to bloom & build.
When both specialized work and collab happen speedily and losslessly within these apps, for a Maker to go to Slack, email and/or Jira becomes a channel of last resort.
But Managers live on these tools! And management means setting deadlines, switching "gears", unblocking others, shifting priorities... things you can't do on the Makers' tools.
My thesis is that on this massive, abrupt shift to working remotely, management tools not only haven't been able to keep up with a Manager's needs, but they have created new jobs-to-be-done. Whatever JTBD you may think of, it all comes down to one key constraint: finite time.
Prior to the covid-19 crisis, time was dealt with 20th-century, office-first, protocols. Hierarchical, cultural and physical protocols that double down as constraints: seniority, office distribution, culture, capital allocation, permissions, etc. Basically, a CEO's unit-of-time was 1,000x more valuable than a jr sales rep's.
It is baffling then to realize how far these management tools are from replicating those real-life constraints. While we live in a physical world of
-certain- scarcity, the Manager's tech stack is an open firehose of emails, notifications, channels and threads that keep piling on until the system collapses... or he/she breaks down.
To reach parity and increase productivity across teams, the tech stack should aim to replicate the best out of these constraints, leaving the "bad" ones (9-to-5, all-sync, top-down, command & control, etc.) behind.
By "replicating" I don't mean adding new features (copied from competitors); I mean toppling a few paradigms off their pedestals prior to start building a more decentralized, constrained-ridden (less-is-more) management tool.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure if it's purely a tooling problem. Tools are only as useful as the people using them and in how they use them.
The maker vs manager schedule (http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html) is something most people agree with even the manager who were once Individual Contributors. Yet, seems there is little incentive for them to change organisational design.
Leaders and managers after reading paul.g's piece would go "ah very true, very true", and the next minute say alright see you in the meeting at 9am tomorrow!
Having said that, a tool that does bring a fresh perspective might really do well in organisations that acknowledge these maker/ manager differences and are willing to rework org culture and design.