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Ask HN: No-BS resource on how to manage developers?

4 points by dandare ↗ HN
Backstory: As a part of our career development program our manager just asked the team to submit ideas for external courses and trainings "...so that we get certified in this Laravel framework that we want to migrate to". Needles to say that never in my career did I require/attend paid external training to learn new technology or framework. Instead we proposed learning lunches where the company would pay for pizza and the senior team members will take turns to lecture to the rest, plus pair programming session and code review sessions. The rest of the story is not part of my question :).

I have realised that most of the discourse in the software development community (HN and elsewhere) is obviously about technology, sometimes project and product management, even methodologies, but rarely about the inner workings of a software development team. All the good practices I know are only result of the personal experience when I was lucky to work under experienced managers.

Do you know any no-BS resource - book or blog - on how to manage developers and dev teams?

EDIT: by no-BS I mean I am looking for specific advice, no generic BS like "how to manage people in 10 steps"

6 comments

[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 26.9 ms ] thread
[dead] kluliss
The only BS here is coming from you.
loumf
Your manager asked for ideas and you had one but didn't submit it. If you look at your manager's words (as you have described them), you can see one thing that he wanted, but your method doesn't provide: Assessment. Figure out how to add a way for them to know that you know Laravel and I am sure that they will approve it.

Read "Peopleware" and "Mythical Man Month", as they are the seminal works on programming as it relates to the people doing the work, and a lot of what was written after will assume you know about them already.

Joel Spolsky has written tons on tech management, for example: http://avc.com/2012/02/the-management-team-guest-post-from-j...

But you can find a lot of gems on his site.

dandare
I personally find Peopleware outdated. Maybe the general ideas still hold but there is little useful details that are still relevant after 25 years.
loumf
Some of the insights/recommendations from Peopleware

* Programmers work better in quiet

* Companies should not let facilities management design office spaces for programmers (with guidelines on a recommended office layout)

* Make a promotion path to a "Free Electron" -- a programmer trusted to find important work in the company and do it (unattached to a team)

* Programmers should now work in a semi-distracted state (open social media/IM)

* Get rid of telephones on programmer desks

I reread it last year and I was mostly thinking that it must be frustrating to work somewhere where management isn't influenced by Peopleware.

loumf
That should be "should NOT work in a semi-distracted state"
mlwarren
Here you go: http://programming-motherfucker.com/

But really, get out of the developers way and let them do what they do best. Shield them from bureaucracy as much as possible and don't try to force them into the dogma of a buzzwordy team management methodology.