Managing the Unmanageable

The Essential Guide to Effectively Managing Developers So You Can Deliver Better Software—Now Extensively Updated
“Lichty and Mantle have assembled a guide that will help you hire, motivate, and mentor a software development team that functions at the highest level. Their rules of thumb and coaching advice form a great blueprint for new and experienced software engineering managers alike.”
—Tom Conrad, CTO, Pandora

“Reading this book’s nuggets felt like the sort of guidance that I would get from a trusted mentor. A mentor who I not only trusted, but one who trusted me to take the wisdom, understand its limits, and apply it correctly.”
—Mike Fauzy, CTO, FauzyLogic
Today, many software projects continue to run catastrophically over schedule and budget, and still don’t deliver what customers want. Some organizations conclude that software development can’t be managed well. But it can—and it starts with people. In their extensively updated Managing the Unmanageable, Second Edition, Mickey W. Mantle and Ron Lichty show how to hire and develop programmers, onboard new hires quickly and successfully, and build and nurture highly effective and productive teams.
Drawing on over 80 years of combined industry experience, the authors share Rules of Thumb, Nuggets of Wisdom, checklists, and other Tools for successfully leading programmers and teams, whether they’re co-located or dispersed worldwide. This edition adds extensive new Agile coverage, new approaches to recruitment and onboarding, expanded coverage of handling problem employees, and much more. Whether you’re new to software management or you’ve done it for years, you’ll find indispensable advice for handling your challenges and delivering outstanding software.


Find, recruit, and hire the right programmers, when you need them
Manage programmers as the individuals they are
Motivate software people and teams to accomplish truly great feats
Create a successful development subculture that can thrive even in a toxic company culture
Master the arts of managing down and managing up
Embrace your role as a manager who empowers self-directed agile teams to thrive and succeed


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