1 of the best books for new development managers

It's sad that this book isn't talked about as a top flight technical management book. It should be. I think the reason it isn't is that it came out just before social media and it never got the exposure it should have.

There are some issues with the book. It uses the style of a month in the life of Sam, the fictional manager in the book. This can come across as dry, but it's effective in getting the information across. Sam is the equivalent of a director level manager, so the book doesn't address what it means to be a day to day technical manager.

However, what it does do is shows the various parts of management and breaks down the skills it takes to do them well. One on ones, coaching, feedback, running meetings, facilitating, project management, planning, etc. It's a great survey of all of these and explaining why the are important.

The best part of the book is that it ends with a series of short chapters that contain overviews of how to use the techniques discussed in the book as well as checklists that can be used to put them into practice. This is a great reference for getting started and for going back to refine after you've used them for a while. Looking over these made me realize areas I could improve and also areas where I'd had managers not running things well but at the time couldn't articulate why.

I'd recommend pairing this book with Camille Fournier's The Manager's Path as a power set of books for any new manager just starting in tech and for seasoned managers who want to pick up some new techniques to use.

Good collection of management tips and wisdom. Everything told trough a concrete story that includes realistic examples and conversations in between short summaries of recommendations. Liked the content Liked the format Liked the style

At the first look and few first pages I didn't expect much as I had feeling it is describing stuff I already know, however after some while I found the book interesting and it actually has definitely some good points.
I very like the summary at the end. Once the book is finished it is nice to go through just few pages and remind everything important for yourself.

The book was easy to read. It combines a discussion of useful elements of a manager's toolbox with a case study of a hypothetical 'good manager' Sam, demonstrating those tools in practice.

Read through this again as I switched positions at work to lead a new team. This book is as close as you can get to having a software management mentor tucked into your bag for consultation on the bus commute to and from work.

I find it very practical and step by step guideline for managing people. It describes quite meny important soft-skills needed to grow healthy team/group in the organization. Easy and fast to read. With plenty of checklists is quite useful for longer period of time on daily basis.

Good survey of technical management practices.

This deliberate short book is a really good introduction and reference for management tasks. It let us accompany a fictional manager on his first weeks in a new company and explains his steps in various situations - ranging from the first introduction to his new reportees, to difficult meetings with other managers or his upper management.

I especially like the reference cards at the end of the book, I think I can make good use of the ideas around 1on1s.

This is must-have reading for every person who is applying or already on the managerial position. It is live daily guidelines, not just a dead phylosophy.

I am not sure how much I can start using in my everyday job immediately as I am not in the similar position as examples used but this surely was informative and easy to read book. Highly recommended for new managers and everyone interested in knowing how management should be done.

Pretty darn good, considering the astronomical aspirations of the authors. The format is wisely chosen, swinging back and forth between a fictional narrative of a middle-manager and topic-oriented discourses.

The problem is that most managers don't start in the middle, and by the time they get there, they've honed their chops as a lower-level manager, managing contributors directly. Most of the people reading the book, I imagine, are like me new managers of direct contributors, and many of the techniques (such as high-level portfolio planning) are difficult to torture into applicability when you're only managing a tiny number of engineers.

But all in all, a leap above most "management secrets" books.