Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Books - Managing Humans

Not often do I read a book as funny about management than this one. I've read the Mythical Man-Month, PeopleWare but those books were quite insightful, but d-r-y. This book was refreshing because the point of view is from someone who's lived through the industry.

There's a lot of biting humour and the thing I got from it is that people are not broken down into simple categories. Management from a producer or consumer perspective is "an art", and this book tries to convey that message. Anyone trying to manage people or if you're being managed by someone else, try this book out before the two I mentioned above. Again, I think it has taken the best parts of the dry books and distilled it down into a semi-fictional, funny and witty book.

The chapters are broken into small manageable chunks that you could work through over a quick period of time. I read the book in a few nights. Here's a quick sampling of the chapters:
  • Ch. 1 - Don't be a prick
  • Ch 18 - Status reports 2.0
  • Ch 25 - A nerd in the cave
  • Ch 31 - Rules for the reorg
Let me know how it goes if you end up reading it because of this post.