Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager, 3rd Edition

Read hilarious stories with serious lessons that Michael Lopp extracts from his varied and sometimes bizarre experiences as a manager at Apple, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, Symantec, Slack, and Borland. Many of the stories first appeared in primitive form in Lopp’s perennially popular blog, Rands in Repose. The Third Edition of Managing Humans contains a whole new season of episodes from the ongoing saga of Lopp’s adventures in Silicon Valley, together with classic episodes remastered for high fidelity and freshness.

Whether you’re an aspiring manager, a current manager, or just wondering what the heck a manager does all day, there is a story in this book that will speak to you―and help you survive and prosper amid the general craziness of dysfunctional bright people caught up in the chase of riches and power. Scattered in repose among these manic misfits are managers, an even stranger breed of people who, through a mystical organizational ritual, have been given power over the futures and the bank accounts of many others.

Lopp’s straight-from-the-hip style is unlike that of any other writer on management and leadership. He pulls no punches and tells stories he probably shouldn’t. But they are magically instructive and yield Lopp’s trenchant insights on leadership that cut to the heart of the matter―whether it’s dealing with your boss, handling a slacker, hiring top guns, or seeing a knotty project through to completion.

Writing code is easy. Managing humans is not. You need a book to help you do it, and this is it.

What You’ll Learn

• How teams work
• How to lead engineers
• How to handle conflict
• How to hire well
• How to motivate employees
• How to manage your boss
• How to say no
• How to understand different engineering personalities
• How to build effective teams
• How to handle stressed people freaking out
• How to run a meeting well
• How to scale teams

Who This Book Is For

This book is designed 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. The book covers handling conflict, managing wildly differing personality types, infusing innovation into insane product schedules, and figuring out how to build a lasting and useful engineering culture.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Management Quiver
Chapter 1: Don’t Be a Prick
Chapter 2: Managers Are Not Evil
Chapter 3: Stables and Volatiles
Chapter 4: The Rands Test
Chapter 5: How to Run a Meeting
Chapter 6: The Twinge
Chapter 7: The Update, the Vent, and the Disaster
Chapter 8: The Monday Freakout
Chapter 9: Lost in Translation
Chapter 10: Agenda Detection
Chapter 11: Dissecting the Mandate
Chapter 12: Information Starvation
Chapter 13: Subtlety, Subterfuge, and Silence
Chapter 14: Managementese
Chapter 15: You’re Not Listening
Chapter 16: Fred Hates the Off-Site
Chapter 17: A Different Kind of DNA
Chapter 18: An Engineering Mindset
Chapter 19: Tear It Down
Chapter 20: Titles Are Toxic
Chapter 21: Saying No

Part II: The Process Is The Product
Chapter 22: 1.0
Chapter 23: The Process Myth
Chapter 24: How to Start
Chapter 25: Taking Time to Think
Chapter 26: The Value of the Soak
Chapter 27: Capturing Context
Chapter 28: Trickle Theory
Chapter 29: When the Sky Falls
Chapter 30: Hacking Is Important
Chapter 31: Entropy Crushers

Part III: Versions of You
Chapter 32: Bored People Quit
Chapter 33: Bellwethers
Chapter 34: The Ninety-Day Interview
Chapter 35: Managing Nerds
Chapter 36: NADD
Chapter 37: A Nerd in a Cave
Chapter 38: Meeting Creatures
Chapter 39: Incrementalists and Completionists
Chapter 40: Organics and Mechanics
Chapter 41: Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics
Chapter 42: The Wolf
Chapter 43: Free Electrons
Chapter 44: The Old Guard
Chapter 45: Rules for the Reorg
Chapter 46: An Unexpected Connection
Chapter 47: Avoiding the Fez
Chapter 48: A Glimpse and a Hook
Chapter 49: Nailing the Phone Screen
Chapter 50: Your Resignation Checklist
Chapter 51: Shields Down
Chapter 52: Chaotic, Beautiful Snowflakes