My management career began with a misunderstanding. “Rands, you’re doing a great job on tools development and I’d really like you to Lead the effort.” It sounded liked your standard professional compliment. Atta boy! Go run with it! Problem was, I didn’t hear the capital L. Lead is what my manager had said. Not lead,… more
Larry was pissing me off. We were a year into a two-year development process. Far enough along to have confidence that we could do it, but not far enough to be sure when we would get there. Features were claimed to be done, but each build of the product was a study in broken and… more
There’s a gaping hole in The Taste of the Day. Yes, it’s a handy task management system, but it’s incomplete. It describes a process for constant scrubbing of a task list, as well as a handy place to keep distractions out of your way via the Parking Lot, but at the end of the day,… more
Think of this. You have a job where, whenever you need to, you can find the absolute truth. When someone asks you, “Phil, why is this happening?” you are 100% confident that you can figure out the precise answer. This is the idyllic situation many engineers on the planet Earth live in, and, well, it’s… more
If you’re wondering about your next job, there are a series of Rands articles that might make the transition easier. First off, there’s A Glimpse and a Hook, which will describe how managers read your resume. Then we’ve got The Sanity Check, which will prepare you for the phone screen. And finally, there’s Ninety Days,… more
I recently spoke at Yahoo! about the book, and, for this presentation, I adapted the Agenda Detection and Meeting Creatures chapters into a piece about how I assess agendas and people in the first 10 minutes of any meeting. Early on in the presentation, I asked the audience, “What are the things you are supposed… more
The $150,000 mistake, your shipping schedule being off by a year, and The Really Bad Hire (aka: we’re being sued). These are not screw-ups, these are fuck-ups. When you discover them, the air leaves your lungs, the back of your head tingles, and there’s an odd metallic taste in your mouth. Your mind goes blank… more
There is a long-standing perk for working at high tech companies. If there is a nerd-relevant movie coming out, it is the obligation of management to get a sneak preview for the engineering team. An opening day morning showing works, but has significantly less morale impact than the sneak preview earlier in the week as… more
Muddled. Our release was muddled. I was sitting at my desk talking to a white stone polar bear and trying to form an opinion about the release. The execs were going to ask. Soon. “Well, QA is freaked out, but QA is always freaked out, so I’ll call that a wash. The UI guys wanted… more
Worst meeting ever. It’s not that the attendee list is wrong. All the right people are there and they’re bright and they are the decision makers. It’s not that the topic is boring or poorly defined. It’s a big deal. The problem with this meeting is that it’s never going to end. See, about a… more