images

Capturing Context

Each organization in a company has its Favorite Application. It’s not truly their favorite application; it’s just the application they must use in their particular capacity in the organization. Stand up right now and walk into an unfamiliar part of your building and stalk your coworkers. If someone stops and asks you what you’re doing, tell them, “Rands sent me,” and vigorously nod your head. That always works.

As you walk the hallways of this strange new part of your organization, look at their screens. What’s the consistent application sitting on their monitors? Is it Excel? Well, you’re probably in some area of operations. ...

Get Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.