Vicki's Reviews > An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

I'm so sad that I can't give this book more stars, particularly since, based on the press around it, the author put a lot of hard work into transitioning this content into a blog, and Stripe Press, the publisher, did a FANTASTIC job rendering it into a physical book that is beautiful to look at and pleasant to hold. Writing books and putting them out into the world is a hard, lonely task.

However, there is too much wrong with it to be able to let the physical manifestation sway over the content:

1. The content was taken from blog posts, and as such, does not form a cohesive narrative, but is instead chapters upon chapters of bite-sized bullets that are hard to remember and don't tie together well.
2. The organization of the book is strange: it starts off by talking about how many people you should hire if you're managing managers. This is not applicable to most people reading the book, unless you're a c-level exec, and if that's the case, you're definitely not spending time reading this book, you're too busy. Most people come into management through promotion, and have no idea what to do They also don't immediately have the power to hire 8-10 people, or change anything about the team size. I'd have liked to see this book tackle the subject from that approach.
3. The transition from blog to book is choppy: there are lots of colloquialisms ("ya know?") that don't make sense given how formal and striking the visual layout is. Half of the book seems like formal management speak ("velocity", "prioritization") and half is like the author is talking directly to me about his experiences. I liked the second half.
4. There are not enough specific examples. It's hard when you can't talk about work you did, but really, that's the only way to get people to connect with what you're talking about. The parts where the author talks about his own experiences are the strongest.
5. The book is written from the perspective of someone who's worked at high-growth companies (Stripe, Digg, Uber), but it doesn't extrapolate well to larger, slow-moving enterprises. It doesn't have to, but the author makes the implicit assumption that the same strategy that works at these kinds of companies works everywhere. I'd rather hear about his personal experiences.
6. The illustrations are beautiful but sometimes make no sense whatsoever (maybe outside of the context of the blog?)

That said, there are several good parts:

1. Like I said, the book is GORGEOUS.
2. There is an excellent appendix of engineering papers, blog posts, and leadership books in the appendix. The author has clearly spent a lot of time studying the subject, and I'd recommend all of these to other readers.
3. The chapter on how to put presentations for executives, and how to handle the media (aka talking to your suboordinates and peers) is spot-on.

Not a strong recommend from my perspective, but maybe it works for others.