Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Managing people is difficult. Managing software engineers is something completely different. Michael Lopp brings his experience to bear in the book Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager. Wickedly funny, and dangerously accurate...

Contents:
Part 1 - Management Quiver: Don't Be A Prick; Managers Are Not Evil; The Monday Freakout; Agenda Detection; Mandate Dissection; Information Starvation; Subtlety, Subterfuge, And Silence; Managementese; Technicality; Avoiding The Fez; Your Resignation Checklist; Saying No
Part 2 - The Process Is The Product: 1.0, Taking Time To Think; The Soak; Malcolm Events; Capturing Context; Status Reports 2.0; Trickle Theory
Part 3 - Versions Of You: A Glimpse And A Hook; Nailing The Phone Screen; Ninety Days; Bellwethers; NADD; A Nerd In A Cave; Meeting Creatures; Incrementalists And Completionists; Organics And Mechanics; Inwards, Outwards, And Holistics; Free Electrons; Rules For The Reorg; Offshore Risk Factor; Joe; Secret Titles
Glossary; Index

Although the title would lead you to believe that the book is targeted for managers, that's not really the case. Yes, software managers will get a *lot* from these pages, but so will any other software professional being managed (that should cover everyone). Lopp, aka "Rands", has spent many years on the front lines of management, from larger companies to startups. In a "cut to the chase" fashion (with words you likely won't see in any other management book), he shares his insights and knowledge when it comes to dealing with the strange and often bizarre world of software development. You'll learn the underlying cause of the Monday morning "freakout", and what's really being said behind the emotional outburst. You'll understand what happens when your staff is starved for information (not a good thing). And something I've already used... figuring out the players in a meeting, and what the real agenda is.

Much of part 1 is devoted to the management side, but parts 2 and 3 are more general in nature, and apply to your own well-being. The Soak is something that we often don't allow ourselves the luxury of, but it's critical to sorting through your thoughts and ideas. A Nerd In A Cave does a great job explaining why we set up our work area as we do. And if you've ever had an argument with someone over the merits of a particular solution to a problem, you'll immediately relate to Incrementalists and Completionists. I know that explains a lot about my approach to problem resolution...

This is one of those reads that is both enjoyable and valuable. You'll either learn to manage better, or learn how to be managed better. You may even learn how to manage yourself while you're at it.

I'm torn, because there's a lot of great content in this book on management responsibilities, how to handle specific management problems, and how developers can understand managers.

But the book is really choppy. Topics shift abruptly in the middle of chapters without transitions, headings have nothing to do with the content that follows then, and the chapters don't flow together. The style is downright strange at times. There are whole paragraphs full of incomprehensible colloquial gobbledygook. The author occasionally refers to himself in the third person as "Rands", but only at random, which just serves to make the book harder to read.

I usually inhale books like this in a day or so, but I've been working on this one for weeks and am barely a hundred pages in.

If you need practical software management advice, do buy this book, but be prepared to do a lot of work to get value out of it. And let's hope Mr. Lopp can find a skilled editor for a second edition that really helps this great information shine.

I've read a couple of Rand's posts on his blog and thought it'd be nice to be able to read the edited, reviewed and improved paper version... I should have saved my money. It's not that the book is useless, but it doesn't adds to much value to the blog posts. Also, not all chapters are worth reading, so you pay for a lot of bad stuff too.

This book is supposed to be for aspiring managers, managers, and anyone who wants to know what a manager is. While it is definitely for the latter, it's not a book for managers or even aspiring managers. What I dislike most about the book is the self-important tone the author has. A lot of the content degrades in usefulness because the author assumes (or wants to believe) that the reader is really interested in him, not the lessons learned from his experiences. This is especially evident the third part, "Versions of You", where the author writes as if the reader will be impressed by the author's self-description (though this is thinly veiled by his constant reference to himself in the third-person, using his pseudonym "Rands").

The use of this pseudonym, "Rands" was puzzling by itself until I learned about how he started writing about his work experiences by blogging. In this light, things make a little more sense, as I could see how the book is just a collection of blog posts pulled together. The execution leaves a lot to be desired however, as the content jumps a lot, and successive chapters have little relation to each other. I can understand why one would want to use a pseudonym while blogging about work life, but using a pseudonym in a book when your real name is on the cover is silly.

Regardless, much of the book is written for people who want to understand software managers, which is much different than people who know anything about software or management, and want to hone their craft. There are a few interesting tidbits throughout the book, but they're scattered in between material I felt was irrelevant, or which I could barely continue reading because my eyes were rolling so much.

I have been reading Rands In Repose for the last two years. This book is a condensation, and rewrite, of Rands best writing. Rands is trying to help you think about where you are in your mgmt career and where you want to go. Its about not-being-a-jerk. Its about being an organic, if that's what works for you. It is about understanding that people aren't cogs.

I like the writing. I wish the publisher had used better quality paper for the book. The paper feels as if it has been (poorly) recycled. The paper is too yellow for me. It would not matter if it had the whitest paper in existence, my personal copy would end up yellowing eventually. I exzpect that I will keep it until I retire, and long after that.

I don't work in the valley, nor the US, but the Rands' writing and ideas are universal. Never mind the valley talk; just soak in the ideas. The book is a bargain for its idea density.

Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager is a collection of Michael Lopp's essays from Rands In Repose. Taken as a collection of essays, loosely group into three sections, provides for easy, start-anywhere-you-like reading. If one of the essays isn't doing it for you, just move on to the next one. This isn't a book that wastes your time building a foundation or central metaphor that it then tries to expand into several hundred pages. It's targeted and concise: he says what he has to say and doesn't waste your time repeating it several times.

The first chapter, "Don't Be a Prick" and "Managers Are Not Evil" set the tone. This isn't a book about a management fad or another magical way to deal with people. It's not trying to enforce a way of dealing with things, but instead, just dealing with the world the way it is. Particularly, Lopp wants you to think of people as people, not computers or compilers.

The book title, "Managing Humans" is important and telling: it's not managing teams, or projects, or products. Lopp's advice is most often directed toward dealing with people as people. From his reasoned approach, he acknowledges that there are two sides to any interaction, and the person who gets the most out of it deals with both sides of it. Instead of reacting out of instinct or fear, the good manager is going to look at the overall picture and how the different people fit into it.

In relation to similar Apress books, I'll put this between Blunden's Cube Farm, a somewhat fictionalized and pessimistic account of his experiences at one company, and any of Joel Spolsky's works, such as Smart and Gets Things Done: Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent, which tend to be very optimisitic and hopeful. Lopp is simply pragmatic. There is good stuff and there is bad stuff; just show up to work and deal with it without getting too caught up in the emotion.

Managing Humans is Michael Lopp's entree into blog-turned-book style that seems to be increasingly popular these days. And while the content from [...] has been edited and tweaked, a few reviewers have mentioned that it needs a bit more polish; I would agree.

While it has an amazing amount of insight into relevant issues delivered with surprising certainty, there isn't research, a philosophical premise, or numbers to back it up, only anecdotes that, while believable, are admittedly created for purpose. Lopp doesn't equivocate, and he doesn't present his views within the context of a greater argument or philosophy. As such, the book reads like a monologue about software companies from a drunk friend who you don't always see eye-to-eye with.

In this regard, the book is simultaneously annoying and stimulating. If you can stomach a point of view not frequently written in, and a blatantly unapologetic tone, it's worth the read. There are nuggets of wisdom to be found, but they are buried so deeply within the anecdotes, I found myself forgetting them after a few chapters.

I really wanted to like this book more, but it lacked a coherence that I may have mistakenly been expecting. Too bad there aren't half star ratings - 3 is a little short, but will have to do.

Rands cuts through the typical managementese B.S. and tells it like it is. Each chapter is composed of real stories (with names changed to protect the guilty) of office situations we've all experienced and try our best to avoid. Some of the stories read like "Office Space" in real life, but each is paired with insightful advice to resolve the situation and avoid similar ones in the future. I've already benefited from the knowledge just this week:

- how to respond to Dingfelder's Monday Freakout.
- when to break out of the meeting once it's no longer worth my time.

A great read. Should be required for every manager, or anyone who has ever been "managed."

A lot of reviews for this work have been posted here already, including a few which puzzlingly complain about the substance of what Michael Lopp has to share, even though the subtitle of "Managing Humans" contains the phrase "Biting and Humorous Tales". While Joel Spolsky, cofounder and CEO of Fog Creek Software, is quoted on the back cover as saying that this is "by far the most brilliant book about managing software teams you're ever going to find", I would argue that in my opinion this is by far the most witty book about managing software teams. The content that the author provides focuses on some of his personal experiences, the bulk of which were taken from previous contributions to his "randsinrepose" weblog, and abides by his premise to a T, which is to not offer a traditional management book based on the idea that there is a science behind management, but a witty book about how managers, "a strange breed of people who through a mystical organizational ritual have been given power over your future and your bank account", learn by doing. At the same time, the reader should not expect this book to explain the hows - it is simply about the software engineering management experiences of one individual and some of the insights he has gained along the way. Despite the fact that much of the content here consists of a wide variety of topics, sometimes seemingly random, for readers seeking more traditional content chapters 27-30 entitled "Incrementalists and Completionists", "Organics and Mechanics", "Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics", and "Free Electrons" provide some valuable content that is reminiscent of Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.'s "The Mythical Man-Month" chapter 3 entitled "The Surgical Team" (see my earlier review). In these chapters, Lopp takes a break from his customary humor and looks at some of the different work styles and associated personalities in this field. After a while, any successful professional will undoubtedly begin to figure out some of the traits possessed by colleagues, but Lopp does the best job that I have seen to provide some broad brushstrokes to help even those in the profession who are no longer neophytes; if anything, this portion of the book will serve as a second take into how professionals might approach different scenarios based on the individuals involved. This book is a quick read and recommended to anyone in the software engineering field willing to take a break for some humor about their own profession, and interested in hearing some life lessons provided by an individual who is not afraid to talk about himself.

Living in a Software Engineering world, this book nailed it. Not everyone gets "1.0 Start-Up Tragedies". Perhaps it's something akin to Katrina. (You had to be there.) Beyond that he does a little physco-analysis of personality work approaches: incrementalist and completionists, manager (north and south) poles of organics and mechanics. It's not only funny and true-to-life, but upbeat. It might be a nice stocking stuffer for that new engineer in the family.