Behind Closed Doors

Preface

The first questions you might ask yourself when thumbing through a book on management are, “Who are these people? Are they for real? Or are they just a couple of consultants without a clue?”

We most definitely are for real. In fact, your authors have more than forty years’ experience in management roles, across a wide variety of environments. We have managed or coached a variety of product development teams, functional teams, cross-functional teams, Agile teams, and operational teams. And over the years, we’ve noticed something important: most managers in technical organizations start the same way we did—as technical people.

Some people tell us that management doesn’t matter—good technical people will produce results regardless of ...