The Manager Pool: Patterns for Radical Leadership (Software Patterns Series)

By Don Sherwood Olson and Carol L. Stimmel

This is written to give technical managers a patterns approach or common vocabulary they can use to solve recurring problems. Each pattern is presented consistently, as a three-part rule which... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201725835
• ISBN13: 9780201725834
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley
• Length: 281 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Only one thing missing

They draw a tree of all their patterns with their titles. However, with 60+ patterns it is very easy to forget what a particular one means. A one sentance reminder of the pattern point would help one go back over the set from time to time as a reminder of what to be doing. This book is everything its cracked up to be and if you do not believe that business need subjugate itself to the happiness of the people practitioning it. Consider yourself warned, for depression and failure await you. They are not all useful, and they are written by developers about management, but many of them are very good to keep in mind and its an easy entertaining read. This book will help you and your team be more effective and happier through simple practical suggestions based on real effective experience.

Fresh Thinking/Practical Focus.

The format and presentation make it an easy,entertaining read. However, there is some great insight that can be harvested and used in a very practical way. It provides a clear understanding of the drivers behind some of the typical behaviors we see every day. It's a huge advantage to be able to understand and anticipate how groups interact.I would recommend it to anyone in the IT trenches.

A fresh, humerous look at managing software.

I have over twenty years in the software industry with half of that in management. The Manager Pool patterns are right on the mark. There is a lesson learned with each pattern. The interwoven, point-making humor is extremely refreshing and direct. It is present in the pictures, ingenious chapter titles and throughout the text. Once I started on the book, I had a hard time keeping myself from looking ahead to get a glimpse at the next pattern. The patterns are appropriately organized into categories such as strategic or behavioral which allows a person to focus in on what may be most applicable to their environment. If you're looking for a different perspective to managing software projects, away from the mundane mounds of leadership literature, then this book is for you.

Nothing radical, just a plan for sensible actions

A novel idea for the construction of software development teams is that all potential managers are placed in a pool and the developers choose the manager that they want for the project. At first glance, this may appear to introduce an additional and unnecessary layer of politics into the planning structure. However, after thinking the matter through, it makes sense and the (un) prefix can be removed. Study after study has indicated that the weakest point in the software development cycle is at the mid-level manager point, which is the one that developers interact with on a daily basis. By allowing a reasonable choice to be made early in the process, many festering political problems can be reduced or eliminated. This is only one of the many sensible strategies put forward in this book. The management of software projects is an exercise in effective psychology, applied to a group that sometimes behaves as a mob, other times as a professional organization and sometimes as a kindergarten class. Therefore, the behavior of a manager cannot be consistent, but must be adjusted to reflect what is happening at the time. The patterns for managerial behavior reflect these many possibilities. The patterns range from simply keeping their attention, (kindergarten class), to offering rewards, (professional) and even to surviving when the group is turning on you (mob). There is a great deal of wisdom in these suggestions, which often sound like something Benjamin Franklin would have written. I disagree with the title to the extent that it includes the word "radical" leadership. There is nothing radical at all about the approach, in fact many of the points bring back memories I have of the managers I have worked under. Some were good some of the time, others good most of the time and some were good none of the time. When they were good, they were often following the principles in this book and when they were bad, it was as if they had read a point and made a conscious decision to do the opposite. Developers are generally a very talented group, but they drift without effective leadership. One way to obtain the necessary direction is to have the managers get together and be selected in a draft, much like that done by sports teams. However, before that is done, make this book required reading and have them interview for the job. It sounds radical, but isn't that the way we select the best new people for our companies?

required reading for development team leaders & developers

The Manager Pool is a provocative book on development team leadership, written by a developer and an ex-developer manager. Having been in the trenches myself, I greatly appreciated just about all the leadership techniques (expressed in pattern form) espoused in the book. An example and particular favorite is Shameless Ignoramus, which recommends that managers should avoid the temptation to try and know all the technical details.I'm certain that this book will rankle many feathers, and probably be dismissed out-of-hand as a couple of developers trying to stir the pot. So be it. I suspect that it'll end up being one of those books that states the obvious to those who read it, and those who need it won't read it.I'd like to see perhaps more patterns, and a bit more detail on how the patterns actually produced the highly touted results as claimed by the authors.The book's presentation was excellent. Well-edited and well-written. It was a very quick read (each of the "patterns" are three or four pages), and looks to act as a good reference as well.