Engineering Management for the Rest of Us - Book Notes
Introduction I recently picked up the book Engineering Management For The Rest Of Us. I’ll not call myself an avid reader so take everything from this post with a grain of salt. This was also first book that I picked on the topic of leadership. The only book that is related to the topic that I’ve read in the past is Staff Engineer. Book Chapter 1 - Caring For Your Team Engineering mangement is completely different from what you have been doing in the past. “You became really good at building bridges so you are promoted to be a baker”. Your job is to enable everyone around you to do their Job. You do intruption driven work, so that others in the team can work in flow state. Lot of communication and collaboration. Experience as an engineer will help you think and advice from the shoes of an engineer. Larger problems to worry about: power imbalances, people structures etc Caring about your job makes you become better at it Chapter 2 - Value of Values People are not pure functions, have all sorts of side effects. Values work is a tool. It gives us a rubric to understand where people might be coming from. Unpacking a persons values together with them helps working together easier, since we understand their drives and motivations better. Values are the fundamental beliefs that guide us, motivate us, and drive our actions. A persons values dicates their behaviour & Ethics. Values does not offer an action but it gives the context to be more understanding of what is happening and why Unpacking individual values together with the team will help in working together better. Leadership is all about driving calarity If work is bleeing into boundaries of values set by you, it can inevitabily lead to burnout. Good managers are people who show care and appreciation for people’s values and also respect their boundaries.