Ebook: Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager

The humor and insights in the 2nd Edition of Managing Humans are drawn from Michael Lopp's management experiences at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland, among others. This book is full of stories based on companies in the Silicon Valley where people have been known to yell at each other and occasionally throw chairs. It is a place full of dysfunctional bright people who are in an incredible hurry to find the next big thing so they can strike it rich and then do it all over again. Among these people are managers, a strange breed of people who, through a mystical organizational ritual, have been given power over the future and bank accounts of many others. 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 amongst the general craziness.

Lopp's straight-from-the-hip style is unlike any other writer on management. He pulls no punches and tells stories he probably shouldn't. But they are massively instructive and 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.

This second editions expands on the management essentials. It will explain why we hate meetings, but must have them, it carefully documents the right way to have a 1-on-1, and it documents the perils of not listening to your team.

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 to lead geeks
• How to handle conflict
• How to hire well
• How to motivate employees
• How to manage your boss 
• How to say no
• How to handle stressed people freaking out
• How to improve your social IQ
• How to run a meeting well
• And much more

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

Section 1: The Management Quiver
1. Don't Be a Prick
2. Managers Are Not Evil
3. The Rands Test
4. How to Run a Meeting
5. The Twinge
6. The Update, The Vent, and the Disaster
7. The Monday Freakout
8. Lost in Translation
9. Agenda Detection
10. Mandate Dissection
11. Information Starvation
12. Subtlety, Subterfuge, and Silence
13. Managementese
14. Fred Hates It
15. DNA
16. An Engineering Mindset
17. Three Superpowers
18. Saying No

Part 2: The Process is the Product
19. 1.0
20. How to Start
21. Taking Time to Think
22. The Soak
23. Managing Malcolm Events
24. Capturing Context
25. Trickle Theory
26. When the Sky Falls
27. Hacking is Important

Part 3: Versions of You
28. Bored People Quit
29. Bellwethers
30. The Ninety Day Interview
31. Managing Nerds
32. NADD
33. A Nerd in a Cave
34. Meeting Creatures
35. Incrementalists and Completionists
36. Organics and Mechanics
37. Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics
38. Free Electrons
39. Rules for the Reorg
40. An Unexpected Connection
41. Avoiding the Fez
42. A Glimpse and a Hook
43. Nailing the Phone Screen
44. Your Resignation Checklist

Glossary