Abstract
Don’t be intimidated by the title of this chapter, even if you are intimidated by your boss. Once you begin to understand the pressures your boss feels, you can turn your relationship with her into one of your most valuable tools for managing your people and growing as a leader. Remember, she probably has a boss too and has been in your shoes many times before.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: In this chapter, feminine pronouns are used, for the sake of a clear narrative line, to refer to the boss. I also have another motive: While our industry is traditionally heavy on the male side, women have brought and will continue to bring their special perspectives to software development. Perhaps if we had more women in the beginnings of our industry, we wouldn’t be in some of the messes we find ourselves in from time to time.
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References
Bruce A. Pasternack and Albert J. Viscio, The Centerless Corporation ( New York: Simon und Shuster, 1998 ), p. 15.
Maybe you could, but what’s the point? I’ve made a good living using their products for many years and you probably have too.
See Yourdon’s great contribution to techniques for surviving “death march” projects in his book of the same title. (It’s in the Bibliography.)
Only those who live in a society such as ours can afford the luxury of even considering hero status. Count yourself lucky to have a good job and do your best. The real heroes died on September 11, 2001 trying to save the innocent.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.“ See Brooks, op. cit., p. 25.
If you were a woman, would you date a guy who tried to use one hair to wrap around his head like a turban to conceal the truth? Probably not. If you know of such women, send me their phone numbers.
We must drill down a bit more on honesty, even if you feel like you’re at the dentist without novocaine.
I know I’ve freely used the terms “craft” and “art” in this book and I’ve been somewhat reluctant to embrace software as an engineering discipline. This was a conscious choice: I spent many years as a hardware engineer and I’m very familiar with the disciplines of applied science. I still prefer to consider our work an art, but from time to time the hard sciences can help us out. See the next chapter for further discussion on this subject.
Gene Kranz, Failure is Not an Option ( New York: Simon und Schuster, 2000 ), p. 393.
Of course, if you’re developing mission-critical software this could be a serious issue. I still don’t trust many financial transactions over the Internet because I know the kind of guys who write the software!
Chess Master 5000. I don’t think they’ll mind me borrowing their menu structure since this program is an older version. I can’t manage a newer and stronger version!
Grove, op. cit., p. 127.
See Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 2, where Brutus speaks after having murdered Caesar. Don’t get any ideas here. I’m aware of the irony of this quotation in the context of working with your boss, but the point about timing in the political drama Shakespeare writes about is equally true in business.
See the article by Challis Hodge entitled “Smoothing the Path” at http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/11/hodge/. He was the founder and CEO of HannaHodge, a Chicago-based user experience firm. He created the University of Wisconsin’s interface design curriculum and guided the user interface development of enterprise Web-based solutions at IBM.
This is my rephrasing of Pasteur’s famous saying, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” I can’t take credit for the paraphrase—I first heard it from my father as a child.
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© 2002 J. Hank Rainwater
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Rainwater, J.H. (2002). Working with Your Boss. In: Herding Cats: A Primer for Programmers Who Lead Programmers. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-0830-3_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-0830-3_9
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