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

by Michael Lopp

Keep asking stupid questions based on whatever topics arrive until you find an answer where they light up.

Who We Are, What We Need, and Our Epic Journey

You need an off-site not to solve a strategic product problem, but to give the team members time away from their hurry to get to know each other.

By Definition, you can’t Invite Everyone Remember, the reason you need an off-site in the first place is that the team has grown to a size where they are consumed by hopefully essential tactics.

My rule of thumb is that each person at the off-site has a deliverable, and that usually means that they need to step up and present. This exercise teaches me two things. First, if I can’t think of something I’d want this presenter to talk about given the problem at hand, then why are they invited? Second, I start to see duplication. Well, Sarah and Frank are both great about talking about our lack of design process. Do I really need them both?

One of your goals for an off-site is to create grounds where people feel comfortable speaking heresy.

engrossing conversation is a great thing and a rich environment for finding the core of a great idea, but there are many conversations to be had, and this is just one.

These can be huge company-changing ideas, but there are only going to be three, and it’s the immense burden of the Taker of Notes to not only find them, but assign them to the people who can and will drive them forward.

Avoid outsiders

An off-site must be at least two days long. You need one evening where everyone gets away from what is hopefully a high-bandwidth conversation regarding whatever it is that ails the company, and gets a chance to process this conversation in the back of their heads.

The successful off-site is one that maps the discoveries of the off-site to the reality of the work.

First, the rule for all attendees in a DNA meeting is, If you don’t contribute, you won’t be invited back.

How in the world are you going to scale if you’re slowly forgetting how software is made?

Be able to draw a detailed architectural diagram describing your product on any whiteboard at any time.

These leaders are: The Lead The Lead of Leads The Director

all those fancy Directors running around looking important and emitting those pithy one-liners on productivity—they are dependent on the Leads of Leads to make sure the work actually gets done.

The bad news is that it’s really hard to tell the difference between crazy batshit insane and crazy batshit inspired.

remember that the Lead of Leads has a foot on both sides of the fence. They equally speak Lead and Director. These two archetypes need each other. Sure, it’d be great if your Director could descend out of her high-Earth orbit, but she’s great there—she thrives there just like this Lead of Leads thrives on translating her vision into action.

is it a job or a title? A job is a well-defined thing that has a clear and easy-to-understand set of responsibilities. A title often has neither.

The main problem with systems of titles is that people are erratic, chaotic messes who learn at different paces and in different ways. They can be good at or terrible at completely different things, even while doing more or less the same job.

Managers lose it when they are no longer questioned in their decisions.

Saying no is saying “stop,” and in a valley full of people who thrive on endless movement, the ability to strategically choose when it’s time to stop is the sign of a manager willing to defy convention.

“Did you know it’s a statistical fact that people with larger feet tend to be better spellers? [Insert awe.] It’s because people with bigger feet are older.”

Fact #3: Process defines communication . Process is the means by which your team communicates.

Pitch is the three-sentence idea that gave you the credibility to hire the people.

If you want to piss me off, if you want me to hugely discount your value, do this: when I ask you a clarifying question that affects how I will spend my time, my most valuable asset, don’t answer the question.

you’ve been clubbed into submission to understand process as the dry documentation of how rather than the essential explanation of why.

What values are they attempting to capture? Look again. Employees must be in their current job for one year before applying for a new job. We meet our commitments to our teams. Employees must have a performance rating of solid or higher in order to apply for a transfer. If someone is failing at their job, we work to improve them rather than shuffling the problem elsewhere in the company. We fix problems, we don’t ignore them.

good at defining process, but shitty at explaining the culture.

Imagine all process as a means of capturing and documenting culture and values.

Those who do not understand creativity think it has a well-defined and measurable on/off switch, when in reality it’s a walking dial with many labels.

How much easier would your status report process be if all you had to do on Friday afternoon was ask your favorite app, “Show me all the wow for the last week”? That report alone is enough incentive for me try to remember to record my wow among all my twitchy saving.

Progress + momentum = confidence

Believe this; an individual tends to be very bad at work estimates until they’ve begun the work.

During lunch, I sat down and asked, “When do you guys switch jobs?” “When we’re bored.”

Step 1: The Situation in the War Room

The intent of the War Room is to break everyone from their flow. The War Room includes a menagerie of people coming in and out, empty pizza boxes and Red Bull cans, and whiteboards full of indecipherable scribbles. It sends a clear message: the status quo is not presently working.

Step 2: The “Bet Your Car” Perspective

Vet your model with at least three qualified others. These are people who were not directly involved in step 1 and who are people who don’t need to understand the particulars of the disaster.

the last part of this step is to put a proper name next to each and every task, and, as much as possible, this name should not be yours.

“Do you understand all of the implications of your plan?” Yes, I do. “Give me your car keys.” Wait, what? “Would you bet your car on the viability of your plan?” [Sound effect: shaking keys.] Right, yeah, let me do one more pass.

Anyone who mails me any random question—they’re on the list.

Maybe there hasn’t been significant progress on anything since your last update? You still send status. The message you send by consistently keeping the folks who care up to date is not, “We’ve made unique progress” or “We have a theory.” The message is, “We are applying constant and consistent pressure on propping up the sky.”

What, precisely, are you trying to do?

Understanding what you’re truly trying to fix is a cure.

By definition, a barbarian, a hacker, is building on a strategy that is at odds with the majority.

Most engineers don’t know what a project manager does, and if they do, they usually don’t know what a good one looks like.

project = ship the product, product = ship the right product, and program = ship many interrelated products, usually at the same time.

You already have a project manager, and it’s you. You’re a full-time engineering manager, you’re the leader of the people, and you’re also a project manager. My guess is that on a growing team you’re likely doing at least one of those jobs half-assed. Which means you’re officially part of the problem.

You know what a good project manager does? They are chaos-destroying machines, and each new person you bring onto your team, each dependency you create, adds hard-to-measure entropy to your team. A good project manager thrives on measuring, controlling, and crushing entropy.