jdudkeidnn

> still not have an understanding of the details of what your reports are doing at some point in time in a given project

What’s preventing the manager from asking? More generally I think this is handled by standups (really any daily report of “here’s what I’m doing”) or some type of ticketing system.

> The brag document should include enough detail for the manager to understand (e.g PR, design links that the manager can review to assess what you did)

These should all be present in some type of ticketing system / wiki. What’s preventing the manager from using those?

Fwiw, on the other end I think managers are overworked too.

> Keep a log of your work. In fact, keep a log of everything you do

This is exactly how contract work is done. If you’re doing this as a full time employee you’re underpaid (assuming it’s for your employer - doing it for yourself is a great idea!)

I’m not quite following…this would be equivalent to a manager asking a dev what work needs to be done (I think). Which is good and healthy - and requires the manager to understand the report (as well as have a record of it, so no need for a brag doc). If they’re unable to understand it, they’re not suited to evaluate that report.

Nearly every time I’ve needed work done on a car different mechanics give me different lists. It’s pretty expensive when I’m unable to evaluate those reports because I don’t understand cars.

> Competent managers can distinguish between those

How do you do this without deep knowledge of what your reports are doing?

While I agree with and appreciate the pragmatism of this, I think there’s a fundamental problem if an employee has to report their work to their manager (or employer, etc). Management that is not deeply aware of what their reports are doing is either unnecessary or incompetent.

I think this trend is mostly a result of management looking to squeeze more labor out of their reports for the same price. As soon as you make working on braggable things your reports problem, you have a lot less work to do and your reports have (more) perverse incentives to both overwork and ignore “unbraggable” work. These incentives are more aligned with contract work, not full time employment - the former usually being much pricier.