Managing Humans, 2nd Edition

07/13/2012 · No Responses

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

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

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