Roundtable on Technical Leadership: A SHAPE Forum Dialogue [Paperback]

Gerald M. Weinberg (Editor), Marie Benesh (Editor), James Bullock (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2002

Joined by coeditors Marie Benesh and James Bullock, consultant’s consultant Gerald M. Weinberg highlights forty experts’ secrets for building and sustaining a leadership role in software development.

Participants of the SHAPE forum, many of them software consultants and managers at the world’s most successful software companies, logged in to help each other identify the "stupid tricks" that developers are tempted to employ in design, code, and documentation—tricks that seem clever in the short term but have damaging long-term effects.

Topics include programming, design, documentation, social factors, teaching, learning, educating management, being yourself, and much more. Presented in an easy-to-read dialogue format, true to the comments’ original appearance on the Web, this is the second stand-alone book drawn from Weinberg’s SHAPE forum, following Roundtable on Project Management.

Contributors include Jim Batterson, James Bullock, Pat Ferdinandi, Fritz, Phil Fuhrer, Jesse Gordon, Don Gray, Brian Gulino, Peter Harris, Joseph Howard, Kevin Huigens, Steve Jackson, Jim Jarrett, Bob King, Dave Kleist, Henry Knapp, Brian Knopp, Fredric Laurentine, Pat McGee, Nate McNamara, George Olsen, Mark Passolt, Sue Petersen, Dwayne Phillips, Brian Richter, Sharon Marsh Roberts, Brett Schuchert, Stuart Scott, Dave Smith, Steve Smith, Daniel Starr, Wayne Strider, Pete TerMaat, Phil Trice, Bill Trierweiler, Marianne Tromp, Jerry Weinberg, and Kay Wise.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

For more than 40 years, Gerald M. Weinberg has worked on transforming software organizations.Marie Benesh is principal of Benesh & Associates, an IT management consulting firm. She focuses much of her consulting on the development of IT leadership skills. Her clientele include major universities and Fortune 500 corporations.

James Bullock has built systems, from lab automation and high-volume embedded controls to enterprise data warehousing and ERP deployments, for more than 18 years. He treasures the contact he maintains with folks from previous projects—people who not only built something good, but enjoyed doing it.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Since Roundtable on Project Management, the first book in the Roundtable series, came out, we have received very favorable feedback from readers. People have said they appreciate the dialogue format and being able to read what the experts are talking about on SHAPE, Jerry Weinberg's online discussion forum.

This new Roundtable book, Roundtable on Technical Leadership, samples a different set of discussion threads from SHAPE. Nearly forty software developers, managers, and consultants contribute their advice, lessons, and experiences—and some confessions—about the tricks they've used, the ways they learn from and teach each other, and the ways they can become better professionals by accepting themselves as people. Each of these topics is a component of technical leadership: our ability to extend our technical skills to the people skills we need for every technical endeavor.

Being a technical leader doesn't require you to have some fancy title or to be approved in that role by management. But it does require you to understand how your use of tools and techniques affects the program, the product, and the productivity of those who work with you or follow you in maintenance.

From the sheer volume of discussion that made its way into this Roundtable, it's easy to see that there is no lack of creativity in the world of programming. That creativity can contribute to your technical leadership, depending on how it's applied. Sometimes, though, we get too creative in the way we get our work done. Follow this book's lively discussion of "stupid" programmer tricks to see if you recognize one of your own so-called clever tricks. I did.

Many of the discussions on SHAPE have centered on the facts and fallacies of technical leadership, especially with regard to the way leaders deal with people. There's the technologist who can't relate to human beings, the guru who knows all, the expert who mentors and teaches others, and the expert who can't or won't share his knowledge. In this SHAPE dialogue, the contributors discuss each of these personalities, and others, uncovering the myths and truths about what it really means to be a leader.

Regardless of the topic, the honesty and the humor these leaders bring to the table allow you to get a rare glimpse into the real life and psyche of technical leaders, from many industries and many walks of life. If you are a technical leader, you'll probably recognize yourself in these threads, and if you don't think you're a leader, you just may decide you'd like to become one.

February 2002            M.A.B. Bath, New York

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Dorset House; 1st edition (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 093263351X
• ISBN-13: 978-0932633514
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,312,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humble, realistic and valuable advice from design experts, July 1, 2002

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Roundtable on Technical Leadership: A SHAPE Forum Dialogue (Paperback)

The first line of the book puts forth a wonderful and accurate tone for the text. "The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." There are two main threads in the book, stupid programming tricks and strategies for effective teaching. By their definition, a stupid programming trick is a design tactic that appears to be a stroke of genius when first used and then after circumstances evolve, turns out to have been negative, sometimes even a disaster. Effective teaching is more an art than a science, and the second section deals with some of the mindset fundamentals necessary to do it well.
The material was gleaned from an invitation-only web discussion group called SHAPE. In the introduction, 38 contributors are listed, and they provide the reservoir of wisdom necessary for the winnowing and pruning of the best ideas. The advice in the book is some of the best that I have ever read. There is none of the egotistical posturing that pervades so many of the online forums, the contributors are genuinely humble and realistic. I found them refreshing, entertaining and likable.
The chapter titles are descriptive content headers and they are as follows:

1) Tricks That Ignore Those Who Come After.
2) Tricks That Destroy Portability.
3) Stupid Design Tricks.
4) Stupid Design Document Tricks.
5) Tricks Arising From Social Inadequacy.
6) Experts And Gurus As Leaders.
7) The Leader As Learner.
8) The Expert As Teacher.
9) The Courage To Teach In Any Direction.
10) The Courage To Be Yourself.

So many technical books contain quality information, but the style of presentation is dense to the point of mind lock or something like a pot of dishwater containing gold nuggets. The good stuff is present, you just have to dig around to find it. This book is neither, the lightness of the prose and the candor of the participants makes it entertaining, and the quality of the advice makes it valuable. When designing software, we all step in it from time to time, and if you read this book you can reduce the frequency of that happening to you.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars computer programming commonsense indeed, June 25, 2005

By 

H. Yang (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roundtable on Technical Leadership: A SHAPE Forum Dialogue (Paperback)

The other comment has already sang praises for the book, and I ditto it and will not repeat it.

Content:
If you've been doing programming for a few years, the book topics would be no stranger to you. It's a forum-based book recording on discussions among a group of experts, and their points are mostly valid.

Format:
However, I feel that the forum-type of books do not suit programming very well, as a programmer you would be looking for clear, executable guides, instead of vague advices given by several different people.

Limitations:
And the technical leadership does not stop with writing good code and communicating with your programmer peers and your programmer subordinates. Other very important aspects such as business requirements and technical innovations are not addressed in the book.

Applicability:
Also the examples the book refers to are mostly from the past several decades. As the industry changes so fast the examples won't ring a bell to programmers today.

Value:
Lastly a lot of programming jobs have been outsourced, and good programming skills don't change this fact.