An Elegant Puzzle. Systems of Engineering Management

Today on the road from Moscow to Sochi finished this bookWhich I started reading this week. The book turned out to be so interesting that I almost couldn’t get away from it while I was flying and on my way to Krasnaya Polyana, where I suddenly left for a trip with colleagues:) This book was written by Will Larson, who worked at Digg, Uber, and Stripe. The same author also wrote a book, "Staff Engineer," which I reviewed in two articles: 1, 2 And so I knew the reading would be selective:)

The book itself consists of 7 parts: 1. Introduction The author describes his approach to engineering management. 2. Organizations It’s about determining the size of teams, how to stay on track for high-performing teams, how not to optimize from the top down. (often works badly)How to be productive in fast-growing companies, how to plan for success 3. Tools - here the author talks about systems thinking and mentions Meadows with her "ABC of Systems Thinking" (about earlier)How to be an acting product manager, how to formulate vision and strategy, how to use metrics and baselines for organizational development, how to conduct large-scale migrations, how to conduct an engineering organization (And is it worth doing at all?)How to shape your career narratives, how to approach the promotion of complex topics without formal authority using the model-document-share approach, how to make presentations to top management and manage your time 4. Approaches How not to get bogged down in managing exceptions to your own policies, how to say no, how to formulate your management philosophy, how to understand where engineering managers have problems, how to partner with your manager, find yourself an area of responsibility and set the direction for the development of the organization 5. Culture How to shape a culture of inclusive organization using opportunities and membership, how to choose project leads, make your peers the first team, how to balance positive and negative freedoms in the company culture, abandon the culture of heroes in favor of sustainable growth 6. Careers How to build the interview process, how to conduct cold sourcing, work on the recruitment funnel, use performance management to develop already hired employees through understandable career ladders, how to create specialized roles like SRE or TPM (technical product manager)How to design interview cycles for desired positions 7. Appendix How to operate in the growing organization: at the level of linear management, the level of middle management and further management of the entire organization, and finally the author gives a list of books and white papers on an interesting topic for him. n

#Engineering #Management #Leadership #Processes #SystemDesign #SystemThinking #SystemEngineering