Posts by Marcus Blankenship
Optimism is your worst enemy
You need to quit being so optimistic. You heard me right. Quit being optimistic about your new hires. Your estimates. Your new clients. Your upcoming projects. Your team’s ability to deliver on-time. What your boss thinks of you. See, that optimism is working against you. It’s blinding you to reality. It’s like the devil sitting…
Read MoreEver get your priorities "re-aligned" by your boss?
When I started leading a team, I got bogged down pretty quickly in it and ran back to coding. I liked the title and the money, but I spent my days hiding in my office coding “important” new features. Nothing was getting done fast enough, and work was piling up, so it made sense that…
Read MoreThe Wrong Section of the Bookstore
I’ve always loved books. As a teenager I spent weekends browsing the Sci-Fi section of the book store and eventually migrated to the Computer Programming section. Many happy hours were spent among those shelves. After I became a Team Lead, I noticed my browsing habits slowly changed. I started to take an interest in the…
Read MoreBut I miss building things…
(This guest post is by Karen Degi. Karen is new enough to software leadership that her idealism hasn’t yet been worn down. You can find more of her writing at https://medium.com/@sheearan. If you are interested in writing a guest post, email me at marcus@marcusblankenship.com) As a manager, it’s easy to feel helpless, randomized, and like you…
Read MoreChanging Jobs, Changing Roles
Changing Jobs, Changing Roles By Max Schubert, guest columnist I was one of two technical leads on a software development team at my previous employer that grew from 2 engineers to 14 over the course of 6 years. We had a manager who gave us a lot of autonomy, coached me very well, and who…
Read MoreWhat to do the first two weeks as a new manager for an existing team
(This is a guest post from Mauro Chojrin. If you’d like to write a guest post about managing programmers, email me at marcus@marcusblankenship.com) TL;DR: watch this scene from Gladiator. Long version: Ok, start by watching this scene from Gladiator 🙂 The very first thing you need to do in order to lead effectively is to…
Read More[Video] Stop coding production tasks, seriously.
I know it’s hard, but you can’t be an effective COACH if you’re still acting like a PLAYER. Can you imagine if Michael Jordan split his time between coaching and practicing basketball? He wouldn’t have been a great NBA player, and probably wouldn’t have been a good manager either. If you’re leading a team, you…
Read MoreThe Real Work of (Software) Management
I recently received an email from a reader, Anton, asking this question: How do I balance management with real work? This is a common question. What Anton wants are tools to help him manage his time and his workload. He’s having trouble “doing it all”, which is a symptom of a larger problem. The problem…
Read MoreWhich developer on your team is looking for a new job?
Have you thought how expensive developer turnover is? In this Stack Overflow article, Rachel Malady dicusses studies that show the cost of losing an employee is about 2x their salary, and the cost of onboarding new employees is 6-9 months of their annual salary. Yikes! The costs of losing people are high, and not just…
Read MoreChapter 2: Fantasy vs. Reality–When Running a Dev Shop Isn’t What You Imagined It Would Be
Congratulations! You’re on your own, calling all of the shots! In words of Dr. Phil, How’s that working for you? Or maybe you’re still working for someone else, but looking forward to the day when you finally can do things your way. Perhaps you’re a valued programmer who’s worked his way up the ladder, and…
Read MoreChapter 1: Lead from the Podium–6 Essential Concepts New Managers Miss
The transition from programmer to manager can be a difficult one. One week, you’re at your desk cranking out masterful code, and the next, you’re managing a whole team that has to navigate innovative solutions, coordinate input from different departments, then anticipate and eliminate potential showstoppers. Stepping away from your identity as a superior coder…
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