Development Manager Role

The development manager runs the system of software production. The development manager is the equivalent of the plant manager. The Development Manager is responsible for the continuous flow of working code production. She must understand the process of code creation and provide the developers and testers with the tools and environment required to build high-quality software. The engineers doing the real work must be happy and motivated.

It is the role of Development Manager to ensure the motivation of the team. However, it may not be a Development Manager role to create the motivators or motivations. That may be a role for more senior management. Hence, the Development Manager has a responsibility to up manage the executives in order to ensure the correct environment and motivation for highly effective code production. She understands that software developers are human and that, as De Luca's First Law says, the job of managing them is 80% psychology and only 20% technology.

The development manager must also look to increase productivity and create a learning organization focused on continuous improvement. The Development Manager will work with the team to identify constraints, then negotiate protection of the constraints with the program (or release) and product managers. The Development Manager is responsible for ensuring full exploitation of a constraint and implementing schemes to subordinate other resources and processes to the full exploitation of the constraint. The Development Manager will also propose schemes to the executive management for elevation of a constraint and prepare a business case showing the improved ROI.

The development manager also takes responsibility for the overall Production Rate (R) and Lead Time (LT) of the system. R and LT are the two metrics by which the effectiveness of a development manager should be measured. R directly reflects the manager's ability to motivate the engineering team and to identify and eliminate constraints restricting productivity. LT shows the effectiveness of the flow. It is the measure of Value Efficiency —the software equivalent of "the number of hours to build a car."