[bonniemuffin]

+1, I think it's critical to stay technically sharp, but that doesn't have to mean pushing user-facing code to production. I can only recall one time I've actually checked in production code since I transitioned to manager (and I definitely felt like I was shirking my manager duties by sinking a day into it), but I stay close to the code in 2 ways:

(1) I review the majority of the code that the team writes, and I also read other people's reviews to evaluate our code review practices.

(2) I hack around with new tools & technologies to evaluate them. This has resulted in some code bits in wikis documenting "here's how to get started with this thing", but not touching any prod systems. I usually save this kind of thing for our "personal projects"/hackday days at work.