Managing Software People and Teams LiveLessons

12+ Hours of Video Instruction

Managing Software People and Teams LiveLessons is based upon the Addison-Wesley book Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams, which provides programming managers and software leaders at every level with tools, rules of thumb, and insights to help them successfully manage their programmers and teams. This is a guide that will help you hire, motivate, and mentor a software development team that functions at the highest level, and is also useful to directors and VPs of Engineering, as well as VPs of Product and CEOs who rely on software people and teams for their company’s success.

Description

All too often, software development is deemed unmanageable. The news is filled with stories of projects that have run catastrophically over schedule and budget. In Managing Software People and Teams LiveLessons, based on their book, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams, Mickey Mantle and Ron Lichty answer that persistent question with a simple observation: You first must make programmers and software teams manageable. That is, you need to begin by understanding your people--how to hire them, motivate them, and lead them to develop and deliver great products. Drawing on their combined 75-plus years of software development and management experience, and highlighting the insights and wisdom of other successful managers, Mantle and Lichty provide the guidance you need to manage people and teams in order to deliver software successfully.

In this video training, Mickey and Ron explain what makes managing programmers uniquely challenging, and then provide lessons and tools to hire and manage on-board new programmers successfully, manage and motivate programmers, manage bosses and peers, manage yourself, develop a successful programming culture, and deliver results successfully. They then answer a question that is becoming increasingly important to answer: “If we’re Agile, why do we need a manager?”

After watching this video, programming managers and other software leaders through any organization will understand why managing programmers is so hard and seemingly unmanageable, and will have tools to help them manage programmers and teams successfully. Like their successful book, this video provides a broad number of topics that the viewer can return to time and time again when confronted with problems, issues, or crises, and find examples, tips, and insight for how to deal with these issues. Like their book, the video queues up rules of thumb and nuggets of wisdom from myriad sources to give viewers ammunition for successful managing. Like their book, the video gives access to tools Mickey and Ron have developed and used in managing themselves. Whether you are new to software management, or have already been working in that role, you will appreciate the real-world knowledge and the practical tools packed into this video course.

Skill Level

• Tech leads
• New programming managers
• Experienced programming managers
• C-level executives and product managers who want to understand how to make their software teams work better
• Any manager who wants to become a better manager of any person or team--not necessarily programmers or software teams li>

What You Will Learn

• How to understand and categorize your programmers
• How to hire and on-board effectively
• How to manage and motivate programmers successfully li>
• How to manage your boss(es), others inside and outside of your organization, and yourself
• How to develop a successful programming culture
• How to deliver results successfully
• How to manage Agile organizations successfully

Who Should Take This Course

• New or experienced managers who want to learn techniques and tools for managing programmers and teams successfully li>
• Executives who want to understand how to better manage software development
• Anyone who wants to be a better manager

Course Requirements

• Desire to become a great manager

Lesson 1: Identifying Managerial Challenges and Managerial Greatness
Lesson 1 introduces the differences between managing, coaching, and leading, and why all these roles are important to becoming a great manager. Mickey and Ron next discuss the differences in programmers and why managing programmers is hard--harder than managing other types of engineers. They then introduce the transitional challenges to managing in an Agile development environment.

Lesson 2: Understanding Programmers
Lesson 2 provides an overview of what programmers do and categorizes programmers in several different ways, leading to a greater understanding of all the various kinds of programmers you might find yourself managing. Understanding all these programmer types is key to becoming a successful programming manager.

Lesson 3: Finding and Hiring Great Programmers
Lesson 3 addresses what Mickey and Ron believe is the number-one responsibility of programming managers: recruiting and hiring to staff great teams. They address the need to treat hiring like a project, from drafting a clear picture of the programmer you want to hire, budgeting the position, and marketing the job posting to recruiting tenaciously, reviewing resumes purposefully, screening successfully and interviewing effectively to making the right offer to the right candidate.

Lesson 4: Getting New Programmers Started Off Right
Lesson 4 speaks, in two parts, to the first days and weeks after getting a new hire’s offer acceptance. In part one, too many managers have experienced new hires not showing up for day one. In part two, for the majority of new hires who actually do start when promised, too many managers and teams fail at effective onboarding them, to the detriment not only of the new hire’s productivity, but dramatically pulling down the entire team’s productivity. The antidote is making onboarding-- starting from the moment of acceptance as well as beginning on day one--a best practice.

Lesson 5: Becoming an Effective Programming Manager: Managing Down
Lesson 5 focuses on how to manage programmers successfully for managers with programmers as direct reports. Mickey and Ron discuss the essentials for success as a programming manager, including the importance of gaining technical respect, hiring the right programmers, and turbo charging those programmers who are inherited. They share approaches to managing different types of programmers as well as the need to provide timely and consistent feedback both in the moment and in the form of performance reviews. They also take on topics such as not tolerating jerks and cynics, how to manage out or terminate problem employees, and various ways to organize programmers into teams.

Lesson 6: Motivating Programmers
Lesson 6 arguably belongs as part of Lesson 5, but is so important that Mickey and Ron believe it warrants its own lesson. They briefly survey key motivational theories, adapting a key theory (Herzberg’s Theory) to specifically align with programmers and software teams. They discuss the important “Foundational Factors” that must be in place to avoid dissatisfaction and enable progress in motivating programmers and teams. They then detail Motivational Factors (Note: money is not the most important!). Learn why and how to leverage these factors to motivate any programmer or team.

Lesson 7: Becoming an Effective Programming Manager: Managing Up, Out, and Yourself
Lesson 7 introduces the concepts of managing not only those who are direct or indirect reports, but also bosses (up), peers, and others in and outside your organization (out) to be more successful and accelerate your career. Then Mickey and Ron discuss the toughest person to manage (yourself) and bring focus to those things each manager can do to manage him or herself more effectively. Last, they discuss the different types of mentors a person can have, and how finding the right mentor can be a lifelong advantage to anyone.

Lesson 8: Establishing a Successful Programming Culture
Lesson 8 points out that managing is immeasurably easier when it occurs within a culture that supports software people and teams. Mickey and Ron point out the managerial responsibility to nurture such a culture and walk through the elements that make up pro-programming cultures in companies large and small.

Lesson 9: Managing Successful Software Delivery
Lesson 9 acknowledges the truth for most programming managers: Our positions exist because someone needs to overcome the seeming unmanageability of software projects--to support and enable the successful design, development, and delivery of those projects. Given that programming managers often work in conjunction with product managers, project managers, program managers, and scrum masters, what is expected of them? What parts in successful software delivery do they play? This lesson walks through the essential managerial roles in software delivery--whether the methodology is waterfall, agile, or some blend of the two--from inspiring purpose to demanding requirements clarity to ensuring team practices that deliver quality and predictability, enough design and planning, and solid craftsmanship.

Lesson 10: If We’re Agile, Why Do We Need Managers?
Lesson 10 challenges the misconception that Agile’s self-organizing teams make managers unnecessary. This misconception can be a problem all around: Managers bent on command-and-control are clearly a barrier to agile adoption, but managers who take a hands-off approach because they don’t know what to do stymie agile adoption as well. In fact, agile thought leaders have always maintained that managers have critical roles to play in enabling agile success. This lesson explains and reinforces those important roles.

About LiveLessons Video Training

The LiveLessons Video Training series publishes hundreds of hands-on, expert-led video tutorials covering a wide selection of technology topics designed to teach you the skills you need to succeed. This professional and personal technology video series features world-leading author instructors published by your trusted technology brands: Addison-Wesley, Cisco Press, IBM Press, Pearson IT Certification, Prentice Hall, Sams, and Que. Topics include: IT Certification, Programming, Web Development, Mobile Development, Home and Office Technologies, Business and Management, and more. View all LiveLessons on InformIT at: http://www.informit.com/livelessons.