Managing Humans: More Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager, 4th Edition
- 6h 14m
- Michael Lopp
- Apress
- 2021
In this fourth edition of the bestselling business book Managing Humans, author Michael Lopp continues to draw leadership advice from some of the most important software companies of our modern age. Educational stories from companies across Silicon Valley such as Apple, Slack, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, and Borland detail the experiences of bright software engineers in an ever-changing industry
This revised edition of Managing Humans expands on the previous editions’ explorations of management essentials including handling stress, building diverse teams, running inclusive meetings, and how to lead in times of crisis. The education of a great leader never stops, and Lopp applies crucial insights to help continue your never-ending leadership education. Whether it is approaching a myriad of engineering personalities or handling unexpected conflict, you will come away with wisdom to handle any team situation.
The engineering culture of a company can determine the difference between a product’s ultimate success or failure. Managing Humans is here to guide managers and aspiring managers into the intimidating world of people and their vastly different personalities. Handle conflict, infuse innovation into your approach, and be the most confident manager you can be after reading this book.
What You Will Learn
- Lead engineers
- Handle conflict
- Understand different engineering personalities
Who This Book Is For
Managers and would-be managers staring at the role of a manager wondering why they would ever leave the safe world of bits and bytes for the messy world of managing humans.
About the Author
Michael Lopp is a veteran engineering manager who has never managed to escape the Silicon Valley. In over 20 years of software development, Michael has worked at a variety of innovative companies, including Apple, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, Symantec, Borland International, Slack, and a startup that slowly faded into nothingness. In addition to his day job, Michael writes a popular technology and management weblog under the nom de plume "Rands," where he discusses his management ideas, worries about staying relevant, and wishes he had time to see more of the world. His weblog is Rands in Repose. Michael lives in northern California, never far from the ocean.
In this Book
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Don’t Be a Prick—Be a Human
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Managers are Not Evil—Start with a Basic Understanding of Where Managers Come from and What They Do
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Stables and Volatiles—There are Two Builders You Need in the Build
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The Rands Test—Take a Brief Test to Understand the Health of Your Team
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How to Run a Meeting—Tips for Developing Your Meeting Culture
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The Twinge—Listen All the Time and Use Your Experience to Detect Disasters before They Occur
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The Update, the Vent, and the Disaster—The Rules for a Good 1:1 and the Types of 1:1s That Show up on Your Doorstep
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Lost in Translation—Communication Strategies for Disconnected Personalities
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Agenda Detection—The First Step in Getting Out of a Meeting is Understanding Why it Exists
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Management via Worry and Crisis
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Dissecting the Mandate—Understanding when and How to Insist on Strategy
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Information Starvation—Each Piece of Information That Arrives has a Proper Home or Homes
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Subtlety, Subterfuge, and Silence—Three Leadership Approaches for Traversing Complexity and Making Progress
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Your Mid-Year Leadership Check-In
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Managementese
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You’re Not Listening—Look Them Straight in the Eye and Never Look at the Clock
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The Hotel Giraffe
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Fred Hates the Off-Site—A Meeting Designed to Help You Set or Reset Strategy
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A Different Kind of DNA—A Design and Architecture Meeting with Teeth
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An Engineering Mindset—On the Topic of Whether You Should Still Code
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Tear it Down—There are Three Leadership Roles
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Titles are Toxic—Titles Place an Unfortunate Absolute Professional Value on Individuals
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Saying No—The Single Most Powerful Arrow in Your Professional Quiver
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1.0—The Hardest Thing to Build
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The Process Myth—Process is a Seven-Letter Word That Begins with P That Engineers Hate
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How to Start—A Nuts and Bolts Analysis of the Time before You Start
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Taking Time to Think—Are You Reacting or are You Thinking?
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Meetings are Not for You
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The Value of the Soak—Let Your Mind Stumble and Strike Out in Random Directions
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Capturing Context—Storing the Thoughts That Made Your Ideas Bright
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Trickle Theory—Stop. Go Do One Thing. Now.
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When the Sky Falls—Concrete Steps to Prop up the Sky
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Hacking is Important—Encouraging Disruptive Acts
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WFH
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Entropy Crushers—Chaos-Destroying Machines
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Your Culture is Rotting
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The Metronome
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Bored People Quit—How to Detect and Fix Boredom before it's a Resignation
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Bellwethers—Defining an Interview beyond the Technical
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The Ninety-Day Interview—Eight Steps to Follow during Your First Ninety Days
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Managing Nerds—A Leadership Checklist for Those Who Build
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Incrementalists and Completionists—Realists at War with the Dreamers
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NADD—Multitasking as Art
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A Nerd in a Cave—The Purpose of a Cave is Not to Insulate, but Germinate
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Meeting Creatures—The Humans You Will Meet
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Organics and Mechanics—Moving Forward Methodically or Simply all over the Place
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Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics—Flavors of Leadership
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The Wolf—The Single Most Productive Engineer You'll Meet
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Free Electrons—Care and Feeding of the Highly Productive
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The Old Guard—The Cultural Bellwether of the Company
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Rules for the Reorg—Traversing Massive Change
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An Unexpected Connection—The Act of Obsessively Understanding in Order to Find Connections
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You are Going on a Quest
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A Glimpse and a Hook—Design Your Resume to Be a Consumable Glimpse
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Nailing the Phone Screen—How to Prepare for an Important 30 Minutes
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Your Resignation Checklist—A Checklist for the Final Days
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Shields Down—A Glimpse of a Potential Different Future
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Chaotic, Beautiful Snowflakes—On the Necessity of Leadership
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Epilogue—Fear is a Liar
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Glossary
