You can't appeal to developers' creativity unless you give them the time and space to think and create. "Techies need time to think as well as doing the code," says Lotus Notes guru Ben Poole.

"Developers, as a general group, are highly competent individuals," wrote Paul Danielson, IT director for a newspaper publishing company. "They need to be given room to develop solutions on their own (although perhaps subject to peer reviews to some extent) without being hand-fed work and methodology by management-especially at the CIO level. Nothing quashes the spirit of a good developer quicker than being given a task and then told how he/she must accomplish it."

Nor should managers expect software to be cranked out by factory methods. Software development is not a Six Sigma activity. "You're discovering, not producing widgets," wrote James, a senior developer.

Instead, give developers the big picture. "The more work I am assigned in advance, the better," wrote one via Twitter. "I can see the endgame on my own instead of having it fed to me by someone else."

Don't Ask Developers to Deal With Nondevelopment Stuff

Most developers want to focus on creating good code. And just about everything else is irrelevant to them.

To many, the manager's most important role is to protect developers from office shenanigans. Developers want and expect their management (including the layers between themselves and the CIO), Limeback says, "to take care of all the corporate crap, useless meetings, paperwork and other time sinks."

Leading that list is the marketing department, or whoever decides on arbitrary ship dates. Says Jim Pensyl, a senior performance engineer, "The more you cave to marketing time lines and avoid realistic estimates, the more you set yourself up for a project that will extend beyond marketing's promised date."

Other developers complain about managers who remind them about pending and late deadlines several times a day. They resent managers who tell them to serialize their tasks. "Give me a priority queue of tasks and let me get stuff done," wrote one developer via Twitter. "Get out of my way. I know what I'm doing." Many developers say they work best with people who give them problems to solve and do not interfere with how the individual solves them.

Listen. Respond. Praise.

Developers don't necessarily expect that the boss will understand what they're doing. They do, however, want the boss to listen and respond to her staff before making decisions. "Chat with the people who do the work once in a while. See what motivates them, and perhaps even get an idea of what it takes at their level to complete a project," IT professional Michael Furmaniuk recommends. "Motivation can start at the top and bottom, but if they never directly communicate, there is no real understanding."

"Listen actively, speak openly" is an important goal for Jason Trebilcock, a self-described BrickHead. "Thankfully, our CIO does just that." But, Trebilcock adds, "It doesn't just apply to CIOs. It should apply to everyone across an organization... Without open and honest communication, you set yourself up for a lot of heartache." Be specific; subtlety is often lost on developers who are very cause-and-effect oriented. "Non-directive" suggestions aren't helpful, since a developer may not have any idea what you're hinting at.