One of the professional development training items on the books for FY18-19 at work was the book Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp.
This post gives a quick overview of what I learned, with more details to be found in this PDF.
Overview
This book is a collection of the author’s blog posts he’s written over the course of his career as a manager at several companies. The chapters include lessons learned, cultural observations, and sets of plays (from a manager’s playbook) that are useful both to managers as well as those being managed. I highly recommend reading the book, as his writing is easy to follow and has a narrative structure (i.e., tells interesting stories).
“The Management Quiver”
Management skills are arrows in a quiver.
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Concepts|Plays
Being human and understanding the humans you manage|How to check if your team is healthy
Where managers come from and what they do|How to run a meeting
Stables and volatiles|How to detect disasters before they occur
Types of 1:1s (update, vent, disaster)|How to deal with the unexpected
Information and the grapevine|How to communicate with disconnected personalities
Subtlety, subterfuge, and silence|How to understand agendas, players/pawns
Managementese|How to use a mandate
Whether managers should still write code|How to listen more effectively
Roles: Lead, Lead of Leads, Director|How/why to run an off-site meeting
Problems with job titles|How to run a design/architecture meeting
|How to say “no”
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“The Process Is the Product”
People that create process are well-intentioned, but they annoy the people who create (realizing that screw-ups are inevitable regardless of how much process there is). And love it or hate it, the process is how you build a product.
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Concepts|Plays
Why engineers seem to hate process|How to get started
1.0: Pitch, people, process, and product|How to take time and think (instead of react)
Hacking as a means of encouraging disruption|How to let ideas “soak” for creativity
Managers are chaos-destroying machines|How to deal with the sky falling (crises)
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“Versions of You”
This section delves more into the different facets of people and teams so that you can understand how the interactions work.
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Concepts|Plays
Bellwethers for your interviewing process|How to detect/fix boredom before someone quits
NADD: Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder|How to manage your first 90 days at a new company
The purpose of a “nerd cave”|How to manage your nerds (i.e., those who build)
The 8 “creatures” you’ll find in meetings|How to feed and care for the highly productive
Incrementalists and completionists|How to handle a re-organization
Organics and mechanics|How to manage levels of skill and will
Leadership flavors: inwards, outwards, holistics|How to structure (and read) a resume
The Wolf engineer|How to handle yourself in (or conduct) a phone screen
Old Guard and New Guard as your company grows|How to resign
Why we need leadership|How to determine if someone may be looking for other opportunities
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