© AIPMM 2012

AIPMM Webinar Series

http://www.aipmm.com

© AIPMM 2012 http://www.aipmm.com

© AIPMM 2012

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

http://www.aipmm.com @AIPMM #prodmgmt

© AIPMM 2012

FEATURED PRESENTATION

http://www.aipmm.com

Chaos to Clarity: Managing the Unmanageable

Ron Lichty, Ron Lichty Consulting

www.ronlichty.com

Ron Lichty,

Managing Software People & Teams

SOFTWEST

___________________________________________________________

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

Why we wrote:

* Addison Wesley published October 1, 2012

*

______________________________ 12/07/12 Managing the Unmanageable http://ronlichty.com

Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*

* 300 in the book

____________________________________________________________

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

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 ____________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

Motivators vs De-Motivators

____________________________________________________________

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

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

Recruiting

Always be recruiting

____________________________________________________________

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

Shielding Your Team

--John Evans photo

Be a damper to the noise. --Joe Kleinschmidt, CTO

____________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© AIPMM 2012

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