Chapter 1, Why Do You Want to Become a Manager?, asks you a simple yet fundamental question. In answering it, we'll come to understand your "why?" and discuss the pros and cons of embarking on this journey. We'll also address the "imposter syndrome" and, if you're an "accidental manager", discuss how to turn this to your advantage.
Chapter 2, What Are the Key Skills I Need?, teaches you the six key skills that I believe all successful software managers need. This includes an introduction to key software and project methodologies, as well as how to land the job of a manager.
Chapter 3, What is My Job Now?, is all about getting started as a manager. We'll discuss what to expect in management meetings and how to approach your first day and your first week.
Chapter 4, A Week in the Life of a Manager, talks about using a blended approach as the most effective way to learn and build up your manager's toolkit. We'll also talk more about methodologies and introduce the ITIL Framework. We start to get really practical and set out a weekly template for how to run a project team, as well as introducing scrum as an effective software development process.
Chapter 5, Managing Your Team, is all about managing and dealing with people. We'll discuss the key themes and practical actions of managing your team, lay out some tips for managing your boss, and also introduce ways to manage your peers and customers effectively.
Chapter 6, Asking the Right Questions to Your Users, sets the scene for the critical project phase of information gathering. We'll discuss how to define five types of users and the best questions to ask each of them. We'll also use the five Whys to get to the root of problems and requirements.
Chapter 7, Meetings, is all about the various meetings you will be having as a manager, whether it's an intimate and internal off-duty chat, or a more formal and customer-facing sales meeting and requirements workshop. We'll also discuss how to wow your potential customers with a product demo.
Chapter 8, Design Techniques, sets out the various techniques a manager needs to guide their project team to define and design good solutions. We'll also get ultra-practical with tips on how to become a "whiteboard rockstar!"
Chapter 9, Validating the Solution, teaches you the different ways to validate your solution. We'll introduce the concept of design thinking and show you how to write a business case and get it signed off.
Chapter 10, Agile, Waterfall, and Everything in Between, recaps all of the methodologies we've discussed so far, and introduces the stage-gate process. We'll also set out some proven practical ways to deal with the Project Management Office (PMO) and how to engage your stakeholders effectively by keeping thing simple and easy to understand.
Chapter 11, Always Be Shipping, is about how to launch the product you've built. We'll talk about the importance of the user acceptance testing (UAT) review and how to sell effectively.
Chapter 12, The Training Day, teaches practical ways of approaching the training day and how to handle support requests. We'll also discuss how to approach the problem of a lack of interest in your product from multiple angles.
Chapter 13, Organizational Management in the 21st Century, takes you through the important reasons why "the manager who has all the answers" is a myth. The chapter will also introduce five key concepts of self-management, and challenge you to think differently about your own style of management and leadership.
Chapter 14, Developing Yourself as a Leader, focuses on the different ways you can improve your emotional intelligence in order to become a better leader. We'll talk about how to establish presence and use nudges to change your team's behaviors. We'll offer some exercises for you to practice and learn more about yourself in the process.
Chapter 15, Your Next Steps, addresses the popular query of whether you can still be creative and continue to write code. We'll reference a real-life example to bring this transitional journey to life and prove that it's very achievable. The chapter also contains a comprehensive summary of the entire book.