His 450-page book, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams (http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net), published by Addison Wesley, has been compared by many readers to programming classics The Mythical Man-Month and Peopleware. It was recently released as video training - LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams - both from Pearson and on O’Reilly’s Safari Network (http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html). He also co-authors the biannual Study of Product Team Performance (http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html).

1. 12 Take-Aways:
Managing the Unmanageable
Ron Lichty | Ron Lichty Consulting
Ron@RonLichty.com | www.ronlichty.com

2. Ron Lichty,
Managing Software People & Teams
SOFTWEST

3. Why we wrote:
* Addison Wesley published October 2012
*

4. 12 Take-Aways:
Managing the Unmanageable
Ron Lichty, Ron Lichty Consulting
www.ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com

5. Take-away #1
• Isn’t it odd...
– how long we expect you to have studied
the art of programming
– how little we expect you to have studied the
art of managing?

6. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening

7. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening
• Managing Software People and Teams
(live classes &, this year, LiveLessons)

8. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening
• Managing Software People and Teams
(LiveLessons, and live classes)
• The Agile Manager

9. Manager Training with Impact
• Managers and the Law
• Situational Leadership
• Reflective Listening
• Managing Software People and Teams
(LiveLessons, and live classes)
• The Agile Manager
• Impactful training you’ve taken?

10. Training Agile
Dean Leffingwell: transitioning factories to Lean, in Asia

11. Training Agile
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)

12. Training Managers: Where’s the Manager?
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)

13. Take-away #2
• Find a mentor

14. How we came to write:
* Addison Wesley published October 2012
*
Mentoring

15. How we came to write:
* Addison Wesley published October 2012
*
Co-mentoring

16. Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book
____________________________________________________________________
Managing the Unmanageable http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

17. Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
• Measure twice, cut once.
• Life is simpler when you plow around the
stump.
• Brooks’s Law: Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later.
– Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
* 300 in the book

18. Take-away #3
• leverage Rules of Thumb in managing

19. Take-away #4:
Always Be Recruiting
• Recruiting: A manager’s most important job
• Always be recruiting
– Be out there
• Know: There’s no perfect record

20. Take-Away #5
Handle Problem Employees
• Intervention beats performance plans &
firing
– Requires preparation, commitment, time
– But gets the job done earlier:
• Marty Brounstein: Handling the Difficult Employee
• One of two results:
– Turns them around
– They quit on their own

21. Take-Away #6
Programmers Aren’t All Alike!
• Programming disciplines
• Generations of programmers
• Morning people vs night people
• Employees vs Contractors
• Proximity
• Cowboys vs Farmers

22. Take-away #7
In the beginning, everyone will talk about scope,
and budget, and schedule, but in the end,
nobody really cares about any of those things.
The only thing they care about is this:
People will love your software, or they won’t.
So that’s the only criterion to which you should
truly manage.
—Joseph Kleinschmidt, SF CTO / now CEO

23. Take-away #8
• Leading by example occurs whether
you like it or not.
— Jateen Parekh,
Founder & CTO of Jelli Crowdsourced Radio

24. Take-away #8
• Leading by example occurs whether
you like it or not.
— Jateen Parekh, Founder, CTO, Jelli Crowdsourced Radio
• Example is not the most important way of
influencing other people. It’s the only way.
— Albert Schweitzer

25. Leading by Example: Nugget of Wisdom
• Nothing undermines your credibility as a
manager more completely than pounding on
your team all year to get their work done on
time and then telling them you don’t have
their reviews done because you were busy.
Whatever you were busy with likely wasn’t
managing your people, so you’ve just
proven to them that they don’t matter. Good
luck motivating them next year.
– Tim Swihart, engineering director, Apple Computer

26. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.

27. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.
• Manage

28. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.
• Manage
• Delegate

29. Leaders and Delegation
• Rules of Thumb
Trust but verify.
29

30. Leaders and Delegation
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN
30

31. Leaders and Delegation
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VLADIMIR LENIN
31

32. – imperative not to micromanage
– the essence of delegation
– setting expected outcomes for teams
Leaders and Delegation
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VLADIMIR LENIN
32

33. Leaders and Delegation
I inspect what I expect.
- ALAN LEFKOF, Netopia CEO, quoting LOU GERSTNER
33
Trust but verify.
-RONALD REAGAN quoting VLADIMIR LENIN

34. Take-away #9
Rule of Thumb about climbing the ladder:
The very thing that has made you
successful in your last role will get
in your way in your next role.
• Manage
• Delegate
• See managing as a new learning challenge

35. Take-away #10
• These are not the same things
– Be a Motivator
– Don’t Be a De-Motivator

36. Motivators vs De-Motivators

37. Take-away #11:
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?
• If you reward heroes...
• Be very careful trying to reward with cash

38. Take-away #12
• “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

39. 12 Top Take-aways: These, or...
• Onboarding: Your new hire’s first day
• Fostering and nurturing unique culture
• The value of one-on-ones
• Managing your people
• Getting programmers to work together well
• Or...
300 Rules of Thumb and Nuggets of Wisdom in one place

40. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Mentoring, coaching, training, consulting:
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net <-----tools, excerpts, more rules of thumb
• The video training:
LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training:
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
Zero to Agile in Three Days
40

41. Informit.com/lichty
Also available on the Safari Bookshelf