The document outlines key takeaways for managing software teams, emphasizing the importance of proper manager training, continuous recruitment, and effective communication. It also highlights the necessity of handling problem employees proactively and fostering a supportive company culture. Lastly, it provides several rules of thumb and insights into motivating team members and maintaining a focus on people over mere project metrics.

1.
12 Take-Aways:
Managing the Unmanageable
Ron Lichty | Ron Lichty Consulting
Ron@RonLichty.com | www.ronlichty.com

2. * Addison Wesley published October 2012
*

3. Coauthor, Study of Product Team Performance
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
3

4. Ron Lichty,
Managing Software People & Teams
SOFTWEST

5. You?

6. Why we wrote:
* Addison Wesley published October 2012
*

7. 12 Take-Aways:
Managing the Unmanageable
Ron Lichty, Ron Lichty Consulting
www.ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com

8. Take-away #1
• Isn’t it odd...
– how long we expect programmers to have
studied the art of programming
– how little we expect managers to have
studied the art of managing?

9. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening

10. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening
• Managing Software People and Teams
(live classes, & now LiveLessons video)

11. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening
• Managing Software People and Teams
(live classes, & now LiveLessons video)
• The Agile Manager

12. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening
• Managing Software People and Teams
(LiveLessons, and live classes)
• The Agile Manager
• Lean: Factories vs Code

13. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening
• Managing Software People and Teams
(LiveLessons, and live classes)
• The Agile Manager
• Impactful training you’ve taken?

14. Agile Training & Managers
Dean Leffingwell: transitioning factories to Lean, in Asia

15. Agile Training & Managers
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)

16. Agile Training: Where’s the Manager?
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)

17. Managers Must Foster Agile Culture
• Trust Our People
• Empower Self-Organization & Excellence
• Expect / Enable Truly Shared Leadership
• Model, Defend, Evangelize Agile Values
• Foster a Culture of Communication
• Encourage Teamwork and Collaboration
• Shield Teams from Politics & Distraction
• Take Care of Stuff! Take Care of Teams!

18. Take-away #1
• Get the most management training you can!

19. Take-away #2
• Find a mentor

20. How we came to write:
* Addison Wesley published October 2012
*
Mentoring

21. How we came to write:
* Addison Wesley published October 2012
*
Co-mentoring

22. Rules of Thumb*
* 300 in the book
____________________________________________________________________
Managing the Unmanageable http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
Take-away #3

23. Rules of Thumb*
* 300 in the book
____________________________________________________________________
Managing the Unmanageable http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
Take-away #3

24. Rules of Thumb*
• Measure twice, cut once.
• Writing clean code is what you must do in order
to call yourself a professional developer.
– Uncle Bob Martin, co-author, Agile Manifesto
• Brooks’s Law: Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later.
– Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
* 300 in the book

25. Take-away #3
• leverage Rules of Thumb in managing

26. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting

27. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting
• Recruiting: A manager’s most important job

28. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting
• Recruiting: A manager’s most important job
• Always be recruiting
– Be out there

29. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting
• Recruiting: A manager’s most important job
• Always be recruiting
– Be out there
• Why must we give it focus & attention?

30. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting
• Recruiting: A manager’s most important job
• Always be recruiting
– Be out there
• Why must we give it focus & attention?
– Hiring windows

31. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting
• Recruiting: A manager’s most important job
• Always be recruiting
– Be out there
• Why must we give it focus & attention?
– Hiring windows
– Getting it right is critical

32. One Bad Hire
• a plague on your team for months
• demotivate your team
• demoralize your organization
• undermine your leadership
• incite dissension and strife
• delay or derail your deliverables
• and... it’s so hard it is to get rid of bad hires!

33. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting
• Recruiting: A manager’s most important job
• Always be recruiting
– Be out there
• Why must we give it focus & attention?
– Hiring windows
– Getting it right is critical
• Don’t let fear of making a bad decision rule

34. Take-Away #5
Handle Problem Employees
• Know: There’s no perfect recruiting record

35. Take-Away #5
Handle Problem Employees
• Know: There’s no perfect recruiting record
• Even if there were,
you’ll inherit a problem employee

36. Take-Away #5
Handle Problem Employees
• Know: There’s no perfect recruiting record
• even if there were, you’ll inherit a problem
• Intervention beats performance plans & firing
– Requires preparation, commitment, time
– But it’s focused on fixing the issue earlier:
• Marty Brounstein: Handling the Difficult Employee

37. Intervention Meetings
• a LOT of preparation
• stating the problem
• list every impact
• let your employee vent
• brainstorm solutions
• map out a plan
– that must include regular, structured follow-ups

38. Take-Away #5
Handle Problem Employees
• Know: There’s no perfect recruiting record
• Intervention beats performance plans & firing
– Requires preparation, commitment, time
– But it’s focused on fixing the issue earlier:
• Marty Brounstein: Handling the Difficult Employee
• One of two results:
– Turns them around
– They quit on their own

39. Take-Away #5
Handle Problem Employees
• Know: There’s no perfect recruiting record
• Intervention beats performance plans & firing
– Requires preparation, commitment, time
– But it’s focused on fixing the issue earlier:
• Marty Brounstein: Handling the Difficult Employee
• One of two results:
– Turns them around
– They quit on their own
• Handle it!

40. Take-Away #6
Programmers Aren’t All Alike!
• Programming disciplines
• Generations of programmers
• Morning people vs night people
• Employees vs Contractors
• Proximity
• Cowboys vs Farmers

41. Take-away #7
In the beginning, everyone will talk about scope,
and budget, and schedule, but in the end,
nobody really cares about any of those things.
The only thing they care about is this:
People will love your software, or they won’t.
So that’s the only criterion to which you should
truly manage.
—Joseph Kleinschmidt, SF CTO / now CEO

42. Take-away #7
Stay Focused on What’s Important!
In the beginning, everyone will talk about scope,
and budget, and schedule, but in the end,
nobody really cares about any of those things.
The only thing they care about is this:
People will love your software, or they won’t.
So that’s the only criterion to which you should
truly manage.
—Joseph Kleinschmidt, SF CTO / now CEO

43. Take-away #8
• Leading by example occurs whether
you like it or not.
— Jateen Parekh, Founder, CTO, Jelli Crowdsourced Radio

44. Take-away #8
• Leading by example occurs whether
you like it or not.
— Jateen Parekh, Founder, CTO, Jelli Crowdsourced Radio
• Example is not the most important way of
influencing other people. It’s the only way.
— Albert Schweitzer

45. Leading by Example: Nugget of Wisdom
• Nothing undermines your credibility as a
manager more completely than pounding on
your team all year to get their work done on
time and then telling them you don’t have
their reviews done because you were busy.
Whatever you were busy with likely wasn’t
managing your people, so you’ve just
proven to them that they don’t matter. Good
luck motivating them next year.
– Tim Swihart, engineering director, Apple Computer

46. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the career ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.

47. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.
• Manage

48. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.
• Manage
• Delegate

49. Leaders and Delegation
• Rules of Thumb
Trust but verify.
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50. Leaders and Delegation
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN
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51. Leaders and Delegation
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quo.ng VLADIMIR LENIN
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52. – imperative not to micromanage
– the essence of delegation
– setting expected outcomes for teams
Leaders and Delegation
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quo.ng VLADIMIR LENIN
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53. Leaders and Delegation
I inspect what I expect.
- ALAN LEFKOF, Netopia CEO, quo.ng LOU GERSTNER
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Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quo.ng VLADIMIR LENIN

54. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.
• Manage
• Delegate
• See managing as a new learning challenge

55. Take-away #10
• The things that Motivate are not the same as
the things that De-Motivate

56. Take-away #10
• Just as you actively Motivate
• You need to actively avoid De-Motivating

57. Take-away #10
• Just as we actively Motivate
• We need to actively avoid De-Motivating
* Frederick Herzberg, 1950s

58. Motivators vs De-Motivators

59. Take-away #11:
Be Careful What You Reward
• “Behavior revolves around what you measure.”
--Jim Highsmith
– If you reward heroes...
• What gets measured gets manipulated.
• “Do you define “done” as “coding complete”?
– Or as features that delight customers?
• Be very careful trying to reward with cash

60. Take-away #12:
Learn to Manage Up

61. Take-away #12:
Learn to Manage Up
• “The single most important leader in an
organization is your immediate supervisor.”
– Jim Kouzes
• “You can safely assume all perceptions are
real, at least to those who own them.”
– Joe Folkman

62. 12 Top Take-aways: These, or...
• Your new hire’s first day
• Fostering and nurturing unique culture
• The value of regular one-on-ones
• Managing your people
• Getting programmers to work together well

63. Raffle!

64. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
• The video training:
LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days
64

65. Informit.com/lichty
Video Training 50% discount code:
• Use code VIDEO50
Book 35% discount code:
• Use code SWDEV35
• Good whether print, eBook, or combination
• eBook includes PDF, EPUB, MOBI formats
Discount codes applicable only at informit.com
Also available on the Safari Bookshelf

66. A Few Closing Rules of Thumb
• If you’re a people manager, your people are far more important than
anything else you’re working on.
—Tim Swihart, Engineering Director
• Projects should be run like marathons. You have to set a healthy pace
that can win the race and expect to sprint for the finish line.
—Ed Catmull, CTO, Pixar Animation Studios
• In applications with high technical debt, estimating is nearly
impossible.
—Jim Highsmith, Agile Coach and Leader
• The quality of code you demand during the first week of a project is
the quality of code you’ll get every week thereafter.
—Joe Kleinschmidt, CTO, Leverage Software

67. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
• The video training:
LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days
67