Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp

Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager Reviews

• 
  Keith

  I bought this book because I love the author's blog (
  www.randsinrepose.com). The blog is excellent, the book less so, probably because it's mostly a collection of his blog posts, which tend to work less well in book format. There is some attempt at organization but it feels very jumbled, oddly enough even more jumbled than the blog.
• 
  Ishraq

  If you wish to scare the hell out of a software engineer, an obsessed introvert geek, give him a managerial position!! Management means dealing with people, become socially engaged and start relating to others in a non-technical manner. Trust me this is scarier than watching a paranormal movie when you are alone in the middle of the night!
  
  I'm starting a managerial position and this scares the hell out of me since I'm no longer able to hide in my cave, put the headset and ignore that everything around me ever existed. My first reaction to this panic rush is search for managerial books, more precisely how to deal with the other creatures out there and it would means a lot to me if it is something related to software engineering. Once I saw these magic words in the title, the book was already ordered.
  
  What astonished me the most with Michael Lopp is that he speaks the same language as I do, use the same acronyms, uses everyday language and able to make me laugh in a matter of seconds. I Love Rands so much and this book felt like setting with this geek you adore, just listening to them talking hours and hours without feeling bored, non a second and I wished he kept talking forever.
  
  I like his advices on resumes and hiring, meetings specially the long-killer-WTF-I'm-doing-here where Chatty-Patty and Mr-Irrelevant are driving you nuts and you reached number 100 on the 1000 ways on how to whack your boss just at the first 5 minutes, nerds and geeks, one-on-ones and managing conflicts. The hilarious moments when the final release date is tomorrow and you have a big show stopper bug or how-in-hell-nobody-noticed-this-bug-before that will make your 48 continuous working hours a fact!! I loved how he called everything names and who doesn't like that! and how he was easily able to tell you cut off the crap and talk sense from hundreds of non-sense situations you are obliged to hear every day from those setting outside the technical zone.
  
  If you are a software developer, go get this book, it is a hell of amusement.
• 
  Sarah

  As a software engineering manager, I am exactly the target audience for Managing Humans. Overall I found it to be a helpful and easy to read book. Some of the chapters really resonated with me and he has some insightful thoughts on how people -- and particular engineers -- function, and what is needed to manage them effectively.
  
  However, some of his chapters really did not resonate with me and almost turned me off from the book. He has a few chapters where he describes the characteristics of "nerds". Whether or not it was his intention, these chapters imply that all engineers are nerds and all nerds are as he describes. I am a successful engineer and I felt that these chapters largely did *not* describe me. I would have appreciated some acknowledgement from him that some successful engineers and engineering managers do not fit into these boxes he is creating.
  
  Additionally, he uses "he" much more than "she" in his writing. He does have a disclaimer about this, which I appreciate, but I still felt as if there was a slight undercurrent of subconscious sexism in his writing. The fact that he did not put in the effort to alternate pronouns regularly means that he does not care enough to think that it is important. However, it *is* important, because every single time I read "he" in a description of an engineer or manager I get the vague sense that it doesn't quite apply to me.
  
  Overall, I recommend the book if you are an engineer or work with engineers. However, I will be integrating his thoughts into my own well-developed perspective on how to be a manager, not just following his advice and tips blindly.
• 
  Robert

  Fantastic book about the perils of managing smart, talented, socially retarded people. Michael Lopp doesn't pull any punches, and leaves no stones unturned in this software development guide. This, along with Peopleware & The Mythical Man Month should be required reading before anyone in software engineering can start working. Wonderful book...if you have ever worked in the tech industry this book will have you laughing, crying, and angry over what you have experienced.
  
  Well worth reading...again and again.
• 
  Ahmed Moawad

  A good read
  
  The book is easily readable and has many eye opening moments. Some chapters were very insightful and made me self-reflect on many practices I do/don't as a team leader, while few chapters were not as good. Overall, Rands (the author) is a gifted writer with a fresh writing style mixing frankness and sarcasm in a delightful way.
• 
  Allegra Poschmann

  A few insightful gems around conducting meetings and productive one-on-ones, an action plan for bored employees and why management is sometimes at odds with software development methodology, but I find this writing style incredibly grating and difficult to follow.
• 
  Crystal Thomas

  A bit "I am a stereotypical white American male programmer whose glory days peaked in the mid-80's and here are my pet peeves about working in Silicon Valley"-esque... But I can definitely derive value from the book. Unfortunately, the value had its climax mid-way in the book, and the latter half was far too myopic in perspective for me to feel like it was useful business advice that would apply anywhere in the world, for anyone, of any age, in any industry.
  
  However I do enjoy his writing, and even though much of some sections was taken with a grain of salt, I definitely ended up laughing out loud at his quips and non-sequitrs. He has a gift for writing and I'd like to read more of his work.
• 
  Erin Turley

  This book had a lot of good takeaways for software engineers and engineering managers. There's a whole section on resumes and phone screens and another on company vision that I jotted down some notes from.
  
  That being said, I rolled my eyes all through this book. His observations around what engineers are like and how to best manage them are based on his assumptions that all engineers are stubborn, argumentative, anti-social, and just plain weird to be around. And these people certainly exist, but I've encountered very few of them so far in my career, and I certainly don't fit into that bucket. I'm mainly just annoyed with all the software engineering stereotypes because I don't really align with any of them and am sick of feeling like I need to in order to be good at my job.
  
  So clearly I had some of my own biases before going into this book, but there's still quite a bit that I learned and gave more thought to as a result of reading this.
• 
  Amy Gilchrist Thorne

  Meh. It was okay.
  
  There were a few places where I laughed out loud, and a few where I exclaimed, "That's so true!"
  
  But I found myself wanting more in-depth analysis about how to fix it when I find myself in biting and humorous situations like these. And there are some recommendations that make sense. But I still found myself wanting more, not because I came to the book expecting the answers to all software development woes, but because some of the observations seemed so insightful that I just started expecting more follow-through.
  
  I guess maybe it's just content better taken in small doses, and just for what it's worth. And I suppose that perfectly describes how I'd read a blog, which is apparently where the book comes from anyway.
  
  Update: I'm bumping this up a couple stars. Since I first read this book a couple years ago, I find myself coming back to it for inspiration (or maybe it's really commiseration) when the organizational behaviour around me becomes exceptionally crazy.
  
  In particular, I find myself returning to the "Information Starvation" chapter. Although some of that content is on the blog, I think it's presented more coherently in the book. Another chapter I return to frequently is the one on meetings, players, and agenda detection, which is also on the blog. And I find myself also visiting the content about performance reviews,
  No Surprises, which I think is only on the blog.
• 
  Marty

  Michael Lopp made a name for himself by blogging about engineering management under the pseudonym "Rands”. The book is more of a packaging of his best blog posts than a cohesive narrative. In our management book club, some people disagreed with Lopp’s opinions and conclusions, but we appreciated his efforts to answer “What does a software engineering manager do? What should they do?” Despite my initial objection, I found his descriptions of diametrically-opposed engineering personality archetypes (e.g. Completionists vs. Incrementalists, Mechanics vs. Organics, Old Guard vs. New Guard) to be helpful in understanding the behaviors and motives of my co-workers. This book is recommended reading, especially for new managers living through start-up drama.
• 
  Adam Wiggins

  Highly specialized advice for being an engineering manager in a modern software company. I found the punched-up writing style annoying, but it's probably preferable to the dry and self-help-ish tone found in most management books.
• 
  Avraam Mavridis

  The first 80%-90% of the book is absolutely great!
  The last few chapters were just stereotypes about different kinds of people, which contradicts with what the author actually mentions at the last chapter, about "unique snowflakes". Still a great book.
• 
  Chad Hurd

  Despite having read most chapters on his website, rereading them in book form was great. A lot of good information, cleverly conveyed.
• 
  Nabil

  This book is filled interesting stories and anecdotes from the authors blog. I really enjoyed it reading it. It was both entertaining and insightful to hear the rants of an Engineering Manager. Since it's a collection of blog posts, the writing style is simple to read and the chapters are short, which makes it easy to digest and binge read.
  
  4 stars instead of 5, because the last half is a bit too preachy and not as well structured as the first.
  
• 
  Kate

  2 stars for the writing (and the fact every other sentence somehow didn’t put a space between the period and the next word...?) but 4 stars for the usefulness of content, even for those in non-technical careers. Will be doing a second read with a pen and paper.
• 
  Ivan Chernov

  Моё отношение к этой книге скакало от главы к главе: "это просто великолепно" до "что за чушь тут написана?". Больше всего расстроил русский перевод названия и был не прав, что не прочитал её в оригинале. Могу порекомендовать людям, которые хотят пойти в технические менеджеры, так как она пытается описать типичные сценарии с которыми вы столкнётесь и людей которые будут в ней участвовать.
• 
  Viktor Lototskyi

  Good 'expand your horizons' book on managing people in IT, structured in 52 chapters, few pages each. Many are relevant and have interesting thoughts or advice.
• 
  Lukasz

  It took me years to read this book end-to-end. In the meantime, I used it as a quick reference guide for specific situations, or just as a pillow to cry my frustration in. Turns out, ways to handle humans and orgs coined in the golden age of Borland, never lost their efficiency. An essential read.
• 
  Chuck

  Worth reading for all Software Engineers. Must read for all Software Engineering Leaders.
• 
  Renee

  The pieces of this book don’t necessarily flow since it is a collection of blog posts, but there is great value in many of them. I was able to identify people I know who fit many of his examples, and he had good advice for how to handle people who work or think differently from you. I think this is valuable for both new and experienced managers.
• 
  Amy

  This is a very well written and practical narrative. The author (Michael Lopp) seems to truly care about managing people, rather than just trying to manipulate or force people to live by his rules and his schedule. I have been fortunate to know managers like the author, and they are worth listening to!
  
  I kept a piece of paper and a pen handy while reading this book, because Lopp often put into words what I felt, but hadn't found words for.
  
  I am new to the software industry, so this book helped me understand the industry a little better. It was comforting to see that the company I work for and the types of people who work there are pretty much what you'd expect. I was surprised to find that the ideal employee in the software industry is very different from the ideal employee in other industries.
  
  Lopp's distilled knowledge is very helpful and gave me an excellent framework to use in thinking about the everyday challenges and conficts and successes of my job. His chapters are short and his writing is direct, and I read this book hungrily, finishing it in four days.
  
• 
  Lynne

  Read this on the recommendation of Kevin Sonney from the Productivity Alchemy podcast.
  
  Very solid approach to laying out management skills and tricks for people who are from technical/engineering backgrounds. I don't know that I actually found it that biting or humorous, but the simple explanations of why managers and processes are :necessary: for organizations larger than 20 people and the approaches to managing the information that managers have to be a conduit for (in multiple directions) was certainly useful.
  
  If you're a structural thinker/problem solver who is new to management, this might be very useful. If you're already pretty strong in the people skills area, it may be less useful directly, but indirectly provides an insight to how your more structural/problem solving folks may view you and your work.
  
  Also, it provided some descriptive frameworks for management/meeting techniques that I've actually seen my (quite effective) boss use, both in one-on-one and group meetings. I'm stealing some of them.
• 
  Ashik Uzzaman

  Last week I finished "Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager" by Michael Lopp. This was a very relevant book for me as it focused on engineering management, particularly the type of job I do in Silicon Valley software companies. The author is a highly experienced engineering leader, currently an executive in Apple and has been VP of Slack in the past with his vast experience expanding to Pinterest, Palantir, Icarian, Netscape, Borland. With humor and straight talks he unleashes some of the inner thoughts of engineers and leaders through three major parts of the book. Many of those may sound opinionated, but I could connect to those easily.
  
  While reading the book, I found that I have never been victim of a layoff although I survived a layoff when I was working for Philips. Looks like there is a lot to learn from that. Whether you are an engineer or a manager, this book has lot to offer to you. I highly recommend reading this.
  
  Source:
  http://www.dragon-bishop.com/2021/06/...
• 
  Scott

  Lopp uses stories very well to make his points (an approach he uses during his live talks as well). I've read this book more than once since I bought it, and the one piece of advice that I initially disagreed with (that an engineering manager should own the technical implementation of a feature in addition to their management role) ultimately proved to be correct in practice.
  
  I attribute most of my success as a manager and mentor to individual engineers and teams of engineers to following the advice I found in this book. I probably owe my most recent promotion to this book.
  
  Whether you're thinking about moving into software engineering management or have already been doing it for awhile, this is a book you need to own and read.
• 
  jonathan berger

  Its interesting to watch an author's transition from Blog World to Book World, and Rands (aka, apparantly, "Michael Lopp") makes the switch with
  
  fuck, I was trying to write a quick little blurb and I got distracted and lost my train of thought.
  
  The book was ok, the blog is better, I like Rands. Done.