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You can use this page to email Gerald M. Weinberg about Managing Teams Congruently.
About the Book
Becoming an effective manager of teams is the subject of this sixth volume in Gerald M. Weinberg's highly acclaimed series, Quality Software.
To be effective, team managers must act congruently. These managers must not only understand the concepts of good software engineering and effective teamwork, but also translate them into their own practices. Effective managers need to know what to do, say what they will do, and act accordingly. Their thoughts and feelings need to match their words and behaviors.
Congruence has the sense of "fitting" —in this case, simultaneously fitting your own needs, the needs of the other people involved, and the contextual, or business, needs. Managers themselves must take responsibility for improving the quality of management and for changing their own attitudes and thinking patterns before they attempt to impose changes on everyone else.
As the author advises, "If you cannot manage yourself, you have no business trying to manage others." This book offers practical advice on how to act, and how to manage others congruently. Examples, diagrams, models, practice suggestions, and tools s fortify the author's recommendations.
Topics include:
• Achieving Congruent Management
• Curing the Addiction to Incongruence
• Ending the Placating Addiction
• Ending the Blaming Addiction
• Engaging the Other
• Reframing the Context
• Informative Feedback
• Managing the Team Context
• Why Teams?
• Growing Teams
• Managing in a Team Environment
• Starting and Ending Teams
• The Diagram of Effects
• The Software Engineering Cultural Patterns
• The Satir Interaction Model
• Control Models
• The Three Observer Positions
About the Author
I've always been interested in helping smart people be happy and productive. To that end, I've published books on human behavior, including Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method, The Psychology of Computer Programming, Perfect Software and Other Fallacies, and an Introduction to General Systems Thinking. I've also written books on leadership including Becoming a Technical Leader, The Secrets of Consulting (Foreword by Virginia Satir), More Secrets of Consulting, and the nine-volume Quality Software series.
I try to incorporate my knowledge of science, engineering, and human behavior into all of my writing and consulting work (with writers, hi-tech researchers, software engineers, and people whose life-situation could require the use of a service dog). I write novels about such people, including The Aremac Project, Aremac Power, Jigglers, First Stringers, Second Stringers, The Hands of God, Freshman Murders, Where There's a Will There's a Murder, Earth's Endless Effort, and Mistress of Molecules—all about how my brilliant protagonists produce quality work and learn to be happy. My books that are not yet on Leanpub may be found as eBooks at <http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JerryWeinberg>; on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B000AP8TZ8; and at Barnes and Noble bookstore: http://tinyurl.com/4eudqk5.
Early in my career, I was the architect for the Project Mercury's space tracking network and designer of the world's first multiprogrammed operating system. I won the Warnier Prize, the Stevens Award, and the first Software Testing Professionals' Luminary Award, all for my writing on software quality. I was also elected a charter member of the Computing Hall of Fame in San Diego and chosen for the University of Nebraska Hall of Fame.
But the "award" I'm most proud of is the book, The Gift of Time (Fiona Charles, ed.) written by my student and readers for my 75th birthday. Their stories make me feel that I've been at least partially successful at helping smart people be happy.