A Manager's Judgment

Business, People, and Technical Perspectives

One critical skill managers must possess is sound judgment. Whether it's deciding on a new product's viability, gauging an employee's performance, or understanding the technical aspects of a project, a manager's judgment plays a pivotal role in steering the company's direction. 1. Business Judgement: A good manager can sift through ideas and identify those with genuine business value. This means looking at an idea's potential return on investment, how it aligns with the company's goals, customer values and its long-term sustainability. Not all ideas are gold. Some are distractions or misaligned with the company's direction. A manager's sound business judgment can discern what ideas or products are unlikely to bring value and can prevent resources from being squandered on them. What we do not do are as important as the things we decide to do, maybe more important sometimes. 2. People Judgment: Good behavior in a workplace includes qualities like reliability, initiative, teamwork, and adaptability. A manager with keen people judgment can spot these traits, commend them, and ensure that such employees are given opportunities to shine. On the flip side, behaviors such as unreliability, dishonesty, or a lack of cooperation can be detrimental to a team's morale and performance. Managers need to be adept at identifying these behaviors, addressing them promptly, and taking corrective action when necessary. 3. Technical Judgment: While a manager might not be hands-on with the technical details, they should have a grasp of best practices and the technological trends shaping their industry. This understanding allows them to recognize good technical decisions that align with the company's objectives and industry standards. Whether it's an unrealistic timeline, inadequate resources, or outdated methodologies, a manager should be able to spot poor technical planning. Similarly, in the execution phase, they need to identify inefficiencies, lapses, or deviations from the plan. Judgement is hard because life is not black and white but a continuous array of gray. Judgement has to be made within the context. If you have a team of junior engineers, setting up a goal that requires serious senior engineers’ skills might not be wise. If you are in e-commerce company then pouring your engineering resource to develop the best non-sql database is probably a waste of your company’s money. But Amazon did it anyway and it is called Dynamodb, didn’t they. Well, that is why judgment is important! Much like a sports judge, a manager doesn't need to be an expert in every role they oversee. However, they need a keen sense of judgment to differentiate between the good and the bad. By rewarding positive outcomes and addressing negative ones, they help build a feedback loop that fosters growth, innovation, and a healthy work environment. #sdm #judgement