Tuesday, May 11, 2010

8 Habits Of Highly Effective Manager

PROBLEM:
How do you know you are a good manager?

SOLUTION:
1. Be a good coach - Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing negative and positive. Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to the employee's strengths.
2. Empower your team and don't micro-manage - Balance giving freedom to your employees while still being available for advice. Make "stretch" assignments to help them tackle big problems.
3. Express interest in employees' success and well-being - Get to know your employees as people, with lives outside of work. Make new folks feel welcome, help ease the transition.
4. Be productive and results-oriented - Focus on what you want the team to achieve and how employees can help achieve it. Help the team prioritize work, and make decisions to remove roadblocks.
5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team - Communication is two-way: Both listen and share. Hold all-hands meetings and be specific about the team's goals. Encourage open dialogue and listen to the questions and concerns of your employees.
6. Help your employees with career development
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team - Even amid turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy. Involve the team in setting and evolving the team's vision, goals, and progress.
8. Have key technical skills, so you can help advise the team - Roll up sleeves and work side-by-side with team, when needed. Understand the specific challenges of the work.

THREE PITFALLS
1. Have trouble making transition to team leader - Fantastic individual performers are often promoted to manager without the necessary skills to lead. People hired from outside often don't understand the specific ways of the company.
2. Lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development. Doesn't help employees understand what company wants. Doesn't coach employees on how they can develop and stretch. Not proactive: Waits for the employees to come to them.
3. Spend too little time on managing and communicating

Reference:http://www.businessinsider.com/8-habits-of-highly-effective-google-managers-2011-3#ixzz1HJQnYZms


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Monday, May 10, 2010

9 Papers Software Architect Must Read

PROBLEM:
You are going to be a software architect, what should you read?

SOLUTION:
I could come up with quite a few more articles not to mention books that aren't in this list. However these are definitely some of the most influential papers I read
  1. Who Needs an Architect? - Do we or don't we? By Martin Fowler (2003) 
  2. The Byzantine Generals Problem - The problem with distributed consensus. By Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease (1982) 
  3. A Note on Distributed Computing - It is one of the foundation papers on distributed computing. By Samuel C. Kendall, Jim Waldo, Ann Wollrath and Geoff Wyant (1994) 
  4. Big Ball of Mud- Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder (1999) -patterns or anti-patterns?
  5. No Silver Bullet Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering - On the limitations of Technology and Technological innovations. By Frederick P. Brooks (1987) 
  6. The Open Closed Principle - The first in a series of articles on Object Oriented Principles. By Robert C. Martin (1996) 
  7. IEEE1471-2000 A recommended practice for architectural description of software intensive systems - It is a standard and not a paper but it is the best foundation for describing a software architecture I know. By various (2000) 
  8. Harvest, Yield, and Scalable Tolerant Systems - That's where the CAP theorem was first defined. By Armando Fox, Eric A. Brewer (1999) 
  9. An Introduction to Software Architecture - one of the foundation articles of software architecture field. By David Garlan and Mary Shaw (1993)
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