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Evolving Leadership in Tech

Evolving Leadership in Tech

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 Welcome to the first episode of my podcast ‘Unlearning’. My guest today is Danny Barnett, Vice President of Emerging Technology Engineering at IBM Research. In his previous role, Danny was VP - Sales & Marketing Technology at IBM CIO, leading a team of 2000 software developers globally, building sales and marketing applications on every platform from IBM’s System z mainframe to Software as a Service, in an agile way. He was a Product Owner and an Architect in his earlier roles, and over his 25+ year career in tech, has seen software development from up close. We discuss evolution of software development leadership role in today’s context. Skills needed to be effective in the role, preparation to be ready for the role, importance of delegation, ways to build capabilities to deliver successful enterprise programs at scale, and more. Enjoy this great discussion with Danny Barnett.Also available on Spotify & Amazon Music PodcastsShow Notes:[00:02:10] - [First question] - How do you define s/w development leader role in today’s context?[00:04:41] - Top five skills a software development leader must have.[00:09:30] - Preparation to take up Software Development leader role for the first time.[00:13:41] - I am a techie. Is software development manager / leader role really for me?[00:17:50] - Limited agile and technical knowledge. How can such a leader adapt?[00:23:51] - Delegation Vs micro-management? Ways to find balance.[00:29:36] - Managing and executing programs at enterprise scale.[00:37:03] - How do I stay up-to-date? Resources for continuous learning.[00:40:16] - Reading and managing against constant digital distractions.[00:44:58] - Ideas on networking if it doesn’t come naturally to you.Transcript:Introduction[00:00:05]: Jayesh: Hello all, I am Jayesh Kadam. This is my podcast called Unlearning. We are going to be talking on a diverse set of topics, like agile, software development, tech leadership. I'm very happy to welcome first guest on this podcast. Welcome, Danny. Shall we start with a brief introduction of yours, Danny?[00:00:33]: Danny: Sure, yeah. Very happy. Well, I am honored to be the inaugural guest, the commencement speaker, if you like, of the podcast. So, hopefully it's all upwards from here on.I am Danny Barnett. I look after, I look after the computing environment for the IBM research division. So it's something that I've been doing since the beginning of this year and it's a, it's a new venture for me. It's a new team and it's new set of challenges. I've got a long background in application development. Last year we rolled out Salesforce, for example, to the whole of IBM. This year, it's more about building high performance computing environments, commissioning data centers, secure networking. It's it's a very different set of challenges, and I'm enjoying it enormously. So, um, but, I still retain interest in how work gets done. And, that's an enduring thing for me over the past 10 years, I would say, is this interest in how things get done. And, I think that's why we're talking.Evolution of Software Development Leader Role[00:01:41]: Jayesh: Thanks, thanks a lot Danny. So, today's topic, um, is very close to me, and I'm pretty sure to you as well. The evolving nature of technical leadership, or, the software development manager or leader role, that we have in in software development or product teams. How is this evolving in today's world? So, that's the topic, we are going to be talking about, and my first question to you is, “we are seeing, the software development world, you know, evolving at an unprecedented pace. The demand for new talent is at an all time high, and the great resignation is at a full swing. So, in this context, how how do you define the software development leader role?”[00:02:36]: Danny: Yeah, I mean, I think it is, it is evolving. I think, uh, you know, in the past, you had kind of I mean, I've been in IT for the best part of 25 years now, and so it has been, it has kind of oscillated, I think, between people who were technical in background, and came up through the technical ranks, and then kind of almost by, you know, default, better, they kind of evolved into management and leadership, through the era when I think people thought of management as a separate profession, and so managers rather like project managers could project manage anything, managers can manage any kind of team. Didn't necessarily have to have the same life history as the people that they were managing in terms of skills and things. I think now, um, the technical side of things is much much more back in focus and I think, you know, a good technical manager these days is a blend of a deep connection with people.A good understanding of the business environment in which they're operating, and, a good background in the technical issues that can be brought to bear on those business, on those business problems. I think that's that's what you're looking for, in a, in a great ...
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