What's It Take to Be a (Good!) Manager?

Managing programmers is hard! Becoming a successful manager requires a drastic change of focus.

The transition from programmer to manager is made particularly challenging by the dramatic difference between what made us successful as programmers and what it takes to successfully manage others. In addition, programmers are an interesting management challenge.
We tend to be free spirits, playful, curious, and (very) independent.

For those programmers contemplating a leap to the “dark side,” here are a few questions to consider:
How can you ease the transition into management? Is management something you can “try out”? What’s management really about? What will you give up?

For programmers as well as managers already managing, here are a few more:
What differentiates success as a manager? What's it mean to manage in the era of agile? How do you prioritize?

Presenter is Ron Lichty, who co-authored the Addison-Wesley tutorial and reference, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams - http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net. Compared by reviewers to software development classics, The Mythical Man-Month and Peopleware, the content is now also available as video training, LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams, http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html. Ron aspires to make software development better worldwide by advancing the practice of software development management.