Habits that Ruin your Technical Team
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Habits that Ruin your Technical Team

Pitfalls and solutions for Technical Managers

About the Book

Technical leads and managers work hard to hire the best people, choose the best tools, implement the best process, and deliver great software. Unfortunately, our actions too often sabotage our best efforts, producing frustrated teams, poor software quality and driving away our best developers.

This book is a mirror for you to reflect on your leadership efforts. It is not for the feint of heart, but for those who are willing to bravely ask, "Do I have this habit?"

Based on my years managing software teams and coaching technical leaders, this book points out 7 ways you could be unwittingly hurting your programmers, eroding trust and undercutting motivation and productivity.

Chapters include:

  1. Withholding feedback until the time is right
  2. Forgetting how difficult good programming is
  3. Fixing other people's mistakes
  4. Not expressing gratitude
  5. Constantly pushing the team to deliver faster
  6. Breaking promises, no matter how small
  7. Taking special privileges

Each chapter discusses WHY this is a problem, HOW it can ruin your team, and WHAT you can do to correct it.

Future updates to the book will be free to all purchasers, and may include more information on correcting these practices, as well as resources you can use to improve your leadership.

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    • Leadership
    • Project Management
    • Lean
    • Management
    • Teamwork
    • Startups
    • Computers and Programming
    • Web Development
    • Software
    • Psychology
    • Agile
    • Leadership
    • Teamwork
    • Career
    • Software Engineering
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About the Author

Marcus Blankenship
Marcus Blankenship

Marcus is a technical leadership author, coach, trainer and speaker, helping great programmers become the next generation of great tech leaders. He lives in Eastern Oregon with his wife and 2 small dogs.

He'll be a grandfather in August 2017, and is looking forward to being called "pop-pop".

Reader Testimonials

John Sonmez
John Sonmez

Best-selling author of "Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual"

Marcus gets and conveys what many, well meaning, managers don't get: technical teams do not fall apart for technical reasons. If you are in any way managing a technical team, this is a must read book.

Bruce Tulgan
Bruce Tulgan

Best-selling author of "It’s Okay to Be the Boss"

Well researched, well written, a great resource for technical managers looking to improve the performance of their teams!

Kristian Glass
Kristian Glass

CTO @ LaterPay GmbH

An excellent guide to avoiding common mistakes made with the best of intentions.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • The Secret Power of This Book
  • Habit 1 - Withholding Feedback Until the Time Is “Right”
  • Habit 2 - Forgetting That Good Programming Is Difficult
  • Habit 3 - Fixing Other People’s Mistakes
  • Habit 4 - Not Expressing Gratitude
  • Habit 5 - Constantly Pushing the Team to Deliver Faster
  • Habit 6 - Breaking Promises, No Matter How Small
  • Habit 7 - Taking Special Privileges
  • This Is Not the End

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