Good software management: ⁃ How to recognize it when you see it ⁃ How to encourage it ⁃ How to encourage senior management to encourage it ⁃ How to collaborate with it effectively What does good software development management look like? How do good programming managers motivate their teams? What are programming managers bedeviled by? How are programming managers tormented by product managers? What are the forces that cause discord between product and software development managers? What can be done about feature creep and late changing requirements? Why do so many parts of organizations expect feature requirements to change but not delivery schedules? What are objectives shared between programming managers and product managers that could encourage collaboration? What would happen if programming managers and product managers formed mutual admiration societies with each other?

1. AIPMM Webinar Series
http://www.aipmm.com
© AIPMM 2012

2. © AIPMM 2012 http://www.aipmm.com

3. Today’s Speakers
Moderator:
Cindy F. Solomon, CPM, CPMM
Founder, Global Product Management Talk
http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/ProdMgmtTalk
Twitter: @ProdMgmtTalk @startupproduct @cindyfsolomon
Presenter:
Ron Lichty
Software Engineering Management
and Product Development Consulting
w: http://www.ronlichty.com
b: http://www.managingtheunmanageable.net
t: @RonLichty
© AIPMM 2012 @AIPMM #prodmgmt http://www.aipmm.com

4. FEATURED PRESENTATION
© AIPMM 2012 http://www.aipmm.com

5. Chaos to Clarity:
Managing the Unmanageable
Ron Lichty, Ron Lichty Consulting
www.ronlichty.com

6. Ron Lichty,
Managing Software People & Teams
SOFTWEST
___________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

7. Why we wrote:
*
______________________________ * Addison Wesley published October 1, 2012
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

8. Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

9. Agenda
• Managing Delivery
• Challenges new programming managers have
• Motivating
• Recruiting
• Handling Problem Employees
• Shielding Their Team
• Managing Out and Up
• Establishing Culture
• Communicating
• Q&A
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12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

10. Managing Delivery
• Best programming manager you ever
worked with?
• Skills
• Behaviors
• Finesse
• Gifts of greatness
. . . that made them stand out?
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

11. Great Programming Manager
• Always recruiting
• Seeks to collaborate
• Listener
• Understands coders
• Deals with problem employees
• Motivates
• Clearly aligns team and purpose
• Infectious enthusiasm
• Delivers
______________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

12. Challenges
for New Programming Managers
Rule of Thumb:
The very thing that has made you successful will get in your
way in your next role.
•Manage
•Delegate
•Be a Motivator
•Don’t Be a De-Motivator
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

13. Motivators vs De-Motivators
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

14. Motivating:
Be Careful What You Reward
• “Behavior revolves around what you measure.”
– Jim Highsmith
• “Firefighters who get rewarded carry matches.”
– Kimberly Wiefling
• Do you define “done” as “coding complete”?
– Or as features that delight customers?
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

15. Recruiting
Always be recruiting
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12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

16. Shielding Your Team
--John Evans photo
Be a damper to the noise. --Joe Kleinschmidt, CTO
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

17. Managing Out and 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
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

18. 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
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

19. Productivity
• The Apple Lisa team’s managers had asked
engineers to report, each week, how many
lines of code they’d written. The first week,
Bill Atkinson turned his attention to making
QuickDraw faster and more efficient,
reducing the previous week’s code by 2,000
lines. He duly reported that he’d written
minus-2,000 lines of code for the week.
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

20. Capacity
• Slack is critical to throughput
– 100% capacity results in bottlenecks
____________________________________________________________ --photo (c) Bud Adams, SXC, www.aimpgh.com
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

21. What Be-Devils Managers?
• Micromanagement
• Requirements that are too detailed
• Requirements that are missing
• Requirements that are not prioritized
• Fixed scope with arbitrary deadlines
• Increasing requirements without adding time
• Interruptions
• Arbitrary, counter-productive rules
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

22. How do we focus on collaboration?
• Roadmaps
• Prioritization
• Listening to customers
• Avoiding wasted time
• Reducing complexity
• Making software customers love
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

23. 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
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

24. 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
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

25. Communicating
• Managers have to communicate more
• Encourage the 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
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

26. Form a Mutual Admiration Pact?
• Lots more collaboration and communication
• Surprise the rest of management
– Relief
– Or scare them (!)
• Help each other manage up and out
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

27. 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
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

28. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Mentoring and Coaching and Consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com/
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights
for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
• Training: now in development:
– “Managing Software People and Teams: the class”
– “The Agile Manager”
(Email me through the site above and I’ll let you know when.)
____________________________________________________________
12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

29. Please Join Us Again!
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