What's It Take to Be a (Good!) Manager

What's It Take to Be a
(Good!) Manager?
Ron Lichty | Ron Lichty Consulting
Ron@RonLichty.com | www.ronlichty.com
Ron@RonLichty.com (c) Ron Lichty: 1

Managing Software People & Teams
2Ron@RonLichty.com (c) Ron Lichty:

•  Untangling knots in software development
•  Making development “hum”
•  Interim VP Eng roles
Advise Business & Engineering Leaders

Ron@RonLichty.com 4(c) Ron Lichty:

http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
* Addison Wesley (Amazon, BarnesandNoble, InformIT.com, Safari)
*

Ron@RonLichty.com 6
http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----and pointers to video training
(c) Ron Lichty:

* Addison Wesley (Amazon, BarnesandNoble, InformIT.com, Safari)
http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
*

The Study of Product Team Performance
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html

Consult:
Untangling the Knots; Making Things Hum
•  process
•  culture
•  communication
•  planning
•  rigor
Ron@RonLichty.com 9(c) Ron Lichty:

You?

Software People Managers
•  Only half have had a single day of
training in management of any kind
•  Less than 5% had a day of
management training prior to managing
•  Even fewer had a day of training
speciﬁc to managing software people

Software People Managers
•  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?

Why we wrote:
* Addison Wesley published October 2012
*

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

•  Managing Software People and Teams 
(live classes, & now LiveLessons video)

•  Managing Software People and Teams 
(live classes, & now LiveLessons video)
•  The Agile Manager

What Is a Good Manager?

What Is a Good Manager?
•  Good communicator
•  Listens
•  Sensitive
•  Real-time feedback
•  Shields the team
•  Flexible
•  Not biased
•  Ethical
•  Knows their team
members
•  Maximizes strengths
•  Politely honest
•  Coach
•  Domain expert
•  Visionary
•  Trustworthy
•  Patient
•  Kind
•  Fair
•  Walks the talk
•  Recognizes the team
•  Motivating
•  Calm
•  Not a micromanager
•  Sympathizes
•  Empathizes
•  Emotional
intelligence
•  Respects time
•  Grows the team
•  Down to earth

Anti-Pattern
•  Both Code and Manage

Success as a Programmer

Success as a Programmer
•  Highly honed coding skill
•  Focus
•  Block out distractions

Success as a Manager

Success as a Manager
•  Welcome interruptions
•  Focus on enabling others
•  Delegate to others what you could do better
•  People skills, coaching skills, and empathy
•  Too few role models
•  Dramatically more managing up and out

Becoming Better Managers
•  Training
•  Books
•  Mentoring
–  boss
–  new peers
–  network

How we came to write:
*
Mentoring

How we came to write:
*
Co-mentoring

•  Training
•  Books
•  Mentoring: boss, new peers, network
•  Ask other managers
–  most important lessons
–  mistakes they made, and how they solved them
–  surprises, both good and bad
–  sources of strength and support

•  Training
•  Books
•  Ask your reports (practice reﬂective listening!)
–  what they want in a manager
–  what they wish could change

•  Training
•  Books
•  Ask your reports (practice reﬂective listening!)
•  Meetups: Silicon Valley & San Francisco
Engineering Leadership Communities

More “Mentoring” Wisdom:
Leverage Rules of Thumb
•  Pair programming for half an hour during
an interview will save everyone’s time.
–  David Vydra, TestDriven.com
•  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.

Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html
31(c) Ron Lichty:Ron@RonLichty.com

Become a Great Manager
•  Fairness
•  Ethical, forthright, honest

Ethical
•  Leading by example occurs whether
you like it or not.
— Jateen Parekh, Founder, CTO, Jelli Crowdsourced Radio

Ethical
•  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

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

Become a Great Manager
•  Fairness
•  Ethical, forthright, honest
•  Facilitate communication

Communicating
•  You have to communicate more
•  Encourage your team to communicate
•  Create a culture of communication
–  at every level
–  with everyone
•  up, down, within and across
•  “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in
this ratio.”
— Kimberly Wieﬂing

Communication
38
You cannot overcommunicate.

-RON LICHTY
(c) Ron Lichty:Ron@RonLichty.com
•  “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in
this ratio.”
— Kimberly Wieﬂing

Become a Servant Leader
•  Theory Y: “enabling”, “empowering”, “developmental",
“continuous improvement” -> Servant Leadership
McGregor's X-Y Theory
39(c) Ron Lichty:
Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
Ron@RonLichty.com

Always Be Recruiting

•  Recruiting: A manager’s most important job

•  Always be recruiting
–  Be out there

–  Be out there
•  Why must we give it focus & attention?

–  Be out there
–  Hiring windows

–  Be out there
–  Getting it right is critical

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!

–  Be out there
–  Getting it right is critical
•  Don’t let fear of making a bad decision rule

Handle Problem Employees
•  Know: There’s no perfect recruiting record

•  Even if there were,
you’ll inherit a problem employee

•  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

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

•  One of two results:
–  Turns them around
–  They quit on their own

•  One of two results:
–  Turns them around
–  They quit on their own
•  Handle it!Ron@RonLichty.com (c) Ron Lichty: 53

Programmers Aren’t All Alike!
•  Programming disciplines
•  Generations of programmers
•  Morning people vs night people
•  Employees vs Contractors
•  Proximity
•  Cowboys vs Farmers

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

Leaders and Delegation
•  Rules of Thumb
Trust but verify.

Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN

Trust but verify.

-RONALD REAGAN quo3ng VLADIMIR LENIN

–  imperative not to micromanage
–  the essence of delegation
–  setting expected outcomes for teams
Trust but verify.


I inspect what I expect.
- ALAN LEFKOF, Netopia CEO, quo3ng LOU GERSTNER
60
Trust but verify.

Ron@RonLichty.com (c) Ron Lichty:

Set High Standards

Motivation
• The things that Motivate are not the same as
the things that De-Motivate

Motivation
•  Just as you actively Motivate
•  You need to actively avoid De-Motivating

Motivation
•  Just as you actively Motivate
•  You need to actively avoid De-Motivating
* Frederick Herzberg, 1950s

Motivators vs De-Motivators

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

Managers Must Foster 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!

Establishing Culture
•  Does your company live its values?
•  Programming culture ≠ corporate culture
–  Wall parts off
–  Substitute and bolster more appropriate values
•  Wherever you can, leverage culture & values

Establishing Culture
•  “Publicly reward or acknowledge engineers
who act in a way that supports the culture
that you want to create.”
—Juanita Mah, engineering manager

Learn to Manage Up

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

Managing Out & Up
•  Because
–  your peers increasingly are not technical
–  and your boss may not be either
•  …they’ll pressure you
–  to micromanage your team (or let them)
–  to report on / prove your team’s productivity
–  to ﬁll your team’s plates to capacity

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.

These, or...
•  Your new hire’s ﬁrst day
•  The value of regular one-on-ones
•  Managing your people
•  Getting programmers to work together well

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.
—Joseph Kleinschmidt, CTO, Leverage Software

Rafﬂe!
•  either
–  business card
–  name / email onto blank
•  Focus on becoming the manager
and the leader
you always wanted to work for

Pre-Order & Save 40%*
informit.com/managing2e
•  Use code EARLYMANAGING
•  Available as Book and/or eBook
(eBook all-inclusive: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI)
•  Free Shipping in the US
Book is also available via booksellers including Amazon and
Barnes & Noble and in O’Reilly’s Online Learning Service.
*Discount code EARLYMANAGING is only good at informit.com
and cannot be used on the already discounted book + eBook
bundle or combined with any other offer. Offer ends December 9,
2019 and is subject to change.
77

Management Track today...
•  Applied Wisdom for the Emotionally Intelligent Manager
•  The Science of Programmer Motivation
•  Building Distributed Teams
•  End-of-Day Panel: bring your management questions!
Tomorrow: Agile Track
•  Situational Decision Making in a VUCA world!
•  Intro to Test-Driven Development
•  Improve Quality & Joy: Agile XP Dojos Work
•  Critical Practices, Nuanced Techniques
•  What to Expect from Your Agile Coach
(and What They Should Expect from You)

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:
–  http://ronlichty.com/study.html
•  Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days

Pre-Order & Save 40%*
informit.com/managing2e
•  Use code EARLYMANAGING
•  Available as Book and/or eBook
(eBook all-inclusive: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI)
•  Free Shipping in the US
Book is also available via booksellers including Amazon and
Barnes & Noble and in O’Reilly’s Online Learning Service.
*Discount code EARLYMANAGING is only good at informit.com
and cannot be used on the already discounted book + eBook
bundle or combined with any other offer. Offer ends December 9,
2019 and is subject to change.
80

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:
–  http://ronlichty.com/study.html
•  Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days

What's It Take to Be a (Good!) Manager

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