Are we making a generation of micro-managers?
Side note: See how it remembers last posts “2026” and made it graffiti in the background? I didn’t ask it to… yet there it is.
With my little pet project I’ve been using a developer Agent pretty consistently over the past month, and what I’m finding is as I use it, my language is getting a bit more micro manager-like.
The Pro’s
While I say “micro” manager-y, that’s comparative for me. I’ve always had a more informal, collaborative, less commanding nature to my style. I’ve always been a soft hand.
Maybe this could be making me better at delegation and command like management. 🤔
- Refining my ability to clearly and precisely articulate my request.
- Taking a stronger hand on the reigns to watch and say… whoa whoa whoa there – you’re completely off track.
- Strengthening my ability to look for and argue to look at a problem from a different perspective after it’s got a solution stuck in it’s head and swears it’s right, only to keep failing simple unit tests.
- Nurturing my ability to have and give opinions on nuances I never thought I needed to have.
The Con’s
AI Agents are kinda like brilliant babies at this phase. When they are on, they can baffle the mind on their speed and ability to work. But when they are off… boy are they hammering their heads against the same thing over and over and over again.
It does actually remind my of my children when they were 1-2 years old. Seeing them try and try again.
But, in this “treating it like savant children” thought.. comes the concern.
- The expectation to have an eagle eye view on thought processes
- The decreased patience, i.e. quick to step in and course correction
- The lack of empathy when informing AI it’s not doing a good job
- The lack of creative autonomy
That last one… in dev speak it’s implementation details; in product speak it’s feature factory mindset. You have a biased towards a specific output. Any variation it met with scrutiny and no trust.
All that sounds very way too micro-managery to me.
The hope
The real hope is that people have the ability to choose and transform their behaviours depending on audience… right… right?