Some people go into management out of a desire to be of service. Others become managers in a cynical pact, exchanging excitement in their current role for the prospect of continued salary bumps and promotions. There are even folks who initially go into management because they’re entirely fed up with their own manager and are convinced that they could do better.
I won’t say which of those, if any, describes me.
Regardless of what motivation first brings you into management, it can feel as if you’ve entered a troubled profession. Skilled practitioners are scarce, and only the exceptional company is willing to invest in growing its managers.
As I’ve become more experienced, my appreciation for management, and engineering management in particular, has grown, and I’ve come to view the field as a series of elegant, rewarding, and important puzzles. This book is a collection of those puzzles, which I’ve had the good fortune to struggle with and learn from.
If you finish the entire book, you won’t walk into your office the next day as a perfect manager (I remain grateful for the days I walk into the office feeling like a marginally competent one), but I hope that it’ll stimulate questions about how you’re approaching management, provide a few new approaches for you to experiment with, and help you take a few steps further down the path of engineering management.
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