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

by Michael Lopp

I’ve come to expect that freakouts are a normal event in passionate engineering teams. It’s still a management failure.

Someone is screaming in your office, and once you successfully defuse the situation, you know two things. First, there is a problem that needs to be solved. Second, and more importantly, someone believes the best way to get your attention is by freaking out.

The gift of the enthusiastic beginner is blissful and empowering ignorance.

you now have just enough experience to understand the actual work involved in becoming proficient at a task you previously thought you could magically improvise.

when communications are down, listen hard, repeat everything, and assume nothing.

There are three distinct phases to the mandate: Decide, Deliver, and Deliver (Again).

for every person on the team who has a strong opinion regarding the decision, there are probably four other coworkers who just want someone to make a decision so that they can get back to work.

I will say that if you don’t spend time considering both sides of the issue before you deliver, then your team will know it and your credibility will be suspect.

The team has got to leave the room knowing the decision has been made. They don’t have to like it, they may hate it, but they can’t leave the room thinking there’s wiggle room in what you decided.

for each piece of information you see, you must correctly determine who on your team needs that piece of information to do their job.

When I hear a fantastic piece of gossip, I’m listening for two things. First, what is actually being said, and second, what informational gap in knowledge is being filled by this fantastic fabrication.

Gossip, rumors, whatever the creation is, it means that someone, somewhere in your organization is asking for help.

you never know what your team is going to care about.

“What did you just hear?”

In my staff meetings, I throw in the occasional long pause. Maybe I’ve just said something controversial and received no pushback.

A good manager is a person who is playing to a strategy and isn’t merely stumbling around squashing fires all day.

the point of a performance review is not the review itself but the conversation that stems from it.

You want to see the person processing the information you just presented; you want to see them asking questions.

Subtlety starts with humility. Exhibiting your power and knowledge as a manager isn’t always the best method of communicating.

The use of subterfuge for good means keeping the intent honest.

in most businesses, everyone’s basic agenda is visible after they’ve talked for about 30 seconds.

if you’re only interested in building power, you’re going to lose.

I’ve turned into a total dorkwad manager and can no longer communicate like a normal human being.

managers are hubs of communication (see Chapter 12). The better they communicate across these sphere boundaries, the more people they can communicate with, and the more data they have. This consequently leads to better decisionmaking.

when you’re talking to individuals, talk to them using the familiar language of a friend.

your goal is to have a conversation, and for that to happen, both people sitting at the table need to trust and understand what is being said.

If they don’t trust you, they aren’t going to say shit.

a decent amount of your professional misery is based on the simple act of one person misinterpreting the intent of another,

“I know you just said something complicated and I am directing my full attention at understanding what you said and what it means.”

Each time I sit down to listen, my goal is the same: continue to build trust with the people I depend upon and who, in turn, depend upon me.

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.

everything appears to be working but we’re not achieving success—for whatever success means at that stage of the company.

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.

After years of off-sites, my observation is that you only find three new ideas that you act upon.

the result of that success is that we’re able to hire more people to do the seemingly impossible amount of work our success has created.

The DNA team is not only the set of engineers who are the best candidates to vet the big idea, but those who have ability to talk about how to make it better, can constructively criticize, and are distinctly drama- and politics-free.

A DNA meeting is not a regular meeting; it is an active and healthy debate about a bet big enough that we’re gathering our bright minds to make sure we don’t fuck it up.

DNA recognizes that the team members we want are examples of folks who live and breathe technical experience, who are selfless, and who contribute exceptional value to the company.

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.

If you can’t imagine owning a feature, my backup advice is to fix some bugs.

I deeply believe in the power of the individual, but I also believe that in order to build epic shit at scale, a colorful tapestry of talent and degrees of experience is essential. And when I say colorful, I mean people who often don’t get along precisely because of this diversity.

The Director’s job is to figure out how the company fits into and interacts with the rest of the world.

There are humans who thrive in the Lead of Leads role. They have this stunning ability to gather and maintain a tremendous amount of state about a great many people and projects in their heads and they do this seemingly effortlessly.

never in my life have I ever stared at a fancy title and immediately understood the person’s value.

Phil’s title should be Humble Math-Addled Keeper of the Peace whereas Felix’s would be The Dark Lord of Performance and Snark.

Titles allow leadership to bucket individuals into convenient chunks so as to award compensation and measure seniority while also serving as labels that are somehow expected to give us an idea about expected ability.

Titles place an absolute professional value on individuals, while the reality is that you are a collection of skills of varying ability. Some are your super power, some are your Achilles’ heels, and none are clearly defined by a title.

For a leader of humans, it’s your responsibility to push your folks into uncomfortable situations in which they’ll learn, document, and recognize their accomplishments, and then help them recover from their failures as quickly as possible.

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