Herding Cats: Delegate, Don't Write More Code

Evgeniy Kuzovlev, CTO of payments at Tinkoff, returns to Herding Cats, which he first read as a new team lead. Twenty years later, its anxieties remain familiar: losing a technical identity, becoming accountable for a team, and feeling isolated.

A team consists of people with different temperaments and strengths, not interchangeable resources. The strongest engineer does not automatically become the best manager, and a manager need not remain the strongest specialist. Their output is the team's output; growth requires reflection, delegation, and honest feedback.

The discussion then covers project management, direction, succession, meetings, and technical leadership. A lead keeps the destination visible without micromanaging every step, records decisions, removes wasteful meetings, and protects engineering standards. A successor makes the team resilient and enables the leader to grow.

The book names four failure modes: no control, micromanagement, worship of technical brilliance, and a political empire. Its alternative combines understanding, communication, delegation, control, and participation. Later chapters cover managing upward, reporting risks, and avoiding an us-versus-them culture. Remote work and change return leaders to the same basics.