I was reading a “management” book this evening. It had, what I thought was a very good summary of the top 10 rules for managing your team:-
1. Praise & Rewards
2. Consistency
3. Routine
4. Boundaries
5. Discipline
6. Warnings
7. Explanations
8. Restraint
9. Responsibility
10. Relaxation
The book was “Supernanny”, by Jo frost and is of course targeted at how to manage your toddlers 
Psychologists, always claimed that we have an inner child, seems to make sense.
A few tips on how to manage “up” the organization. I define the term, “Senior Manager”, as your manager’s manager or above. So when you are working on something that you know will go to your Senior Manager for a decision, here are a few things to remember:-
1. No Surprises- The bigger the request/decision/amount the more time you need to warn managers of what is coming and why. Shocks make managers nervous and like you are out of control. Don’t forget your senior manager also needs to manage-up.
2. Prepare, prepare, prepare – have all possible questions answered in advance. Don’t make it hard work for your senior manager. He/she doesn’t (a) know the topic area in as much detail as you (b) have as much time as you.
3. Don’t put your Senior Manager on your critical path – If you find yourself saying, “I am waiting on my manager to ……” it probably is a bad sign. Only you can take responsibility for getting him/her off your critical path.
Received this in a newsletter today. Thought it was interesting:
The eight factors that make us happy in ranked order are:
1. Friendly, supportive colleagues
2. Enjoyable work
3. Good boss or line manager
4. Good work/life balance
5. Varied work
6. Belief that we’re doing something worthwhile
7. Feeling that what we do makes a difference
8. Being part of a successful team
The eight factors that make us unhappy in ranked order are:
1. Lack of communication from the top
2. Uncompetitive salary
3. No recognition for achievements
4. Poor boss/line manager
5. Little personal development
6. Ideas being ignored
7. Lack of opportunity for good performers
8. Lack of benefits
This month it’s 10 years since Java was first announced.
I was reminiscing that I was quite lucky to work with a great team (known affectionately as BMC-Group) that was always on the bleeding edge of technology and innovation. We embraced Java technology very early on (1996) and produced some fantastic early concept products which eventually led to quite a significant project, Visual Vectors (complete with the odd battle scar from using bleeding edge technology
As a result, Over the last decade, BMC-Group has spawned some great java developers PVS, DJJ, WCW, AWL, MLQ, MAS, OJB, BPH.
These guys have gone on to be the driving force behind some popular Java tools
Checkstyle, Fisheye and Clover
However – The person who originally introduced BMC-Group to this exciting world, was a very talented recently recruited university graduate; Eric Fu. Eric left the team back in 1997 to explore the world and work on other exciting stuff. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I was lucky enough to catch up with Eric on Yahoo IM last week to find out what he was up to nowadays.
Amazingly, 10 years later. Eric and I are now in different companies, on different continents and without knowing it we are effectively both working on the same project to create the next generation of the mobile applications and devices using Symbian C++, technology. Some exciting mobile devices such as the N91 from Nokia. One things for sure, the smartphone market and mobile internet is really starting to look interesting (in a similar way to the internet looked back in 1995).
Posted in Technology
Posted in Technology
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