Foreword
Through my first quarter century of working with technical managers, I developed a bad habit of assuming that all technical managers were bad managers. Rothman and Derby, in their short and wise book, Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management, show that I was wrong.
Most of these “bad managers” were not bad at all. They were simply ignorant of what it took to be a good manager—let alone a great manager.
And why were they ignorant? Because in the first twenty-five years of the software business, they had no great managers from whom to learn their trade. Like all pioneers, they were breaking unplowed ground, which is always a tough job.
A few of these first-generation managers grew into great managers, just around the time ...
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