A bit longer than a year ago, <a href="https://app.daily.dev/schepelin" data-mention-id="dkNVuIIoGhPAUFp9VKo1K" data-mention-username="schepelin" translate="no">@schepelin</a> and I set out to put together some of our thoughts around engineering management. Initially, our goal was to write a handbook for starting engineering managers where we collect all of our learnings and experiences in one place.
The pivot
The more we wrote, the more it started to look like an encyclopedia of all things related to engineering management. As we went deeper down the rabbit hole, we realized a couple of things:
<ul>
<li>There are already quite a few books on the topic</li>
<li>Nobody wants to read an encyclopedia</li>
<li>There was quite a bit of tacit knowledge that not many people talk about, but is still essential for one to be effective</li>
</ul>
As should be done by any engineering team when faced with a product-market fit problem, we decided to pivot and focus on the last point.
Small iterations
Now that we had a better understanding of the problem we wanted to solve, we went ahead and decided on how we wanted to structure it. We knew roughly what we wanted to cover. We also knew in which order we wanted to cover it. So what was left was to write it down.
After tens of thousands of words, we finally reached a point where we felt that we had most of the content ready to be shared. At that point, we realized that we had been in our own echo chamber for quite some time, and that we needed to get some feedback, both internally as well as from the outside world.
As faced by many engineering teams, we quickly realized that we should have been asking for feedback much earlier, and much more often. Again, as should be done by any engineering team, we decided to break down the book into smaller iterations and share it with the world as we go.
This is where <a href="https://leanpub.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Leanpub</a> comes in, as it allows us to share the book with you as we write it, and get your feedback on it.
The launch
Today, we are proud to share with you that we’re launching the first half of our book: <a href="https://leanpub.com/managers-compass" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">Engineering Manager’s Compass: Insights for building effective engineering organizations</a>
We would love to get your feedback and hear your thoughts on the topic, so please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
Hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it!

We spent the last decade managing teams, delivering on projects, and leading people. We learned our craft by combining data-backed research and our trials and errors.

Manage things, lead people

Two engineering managers are launching the first half of their book 'Engineering Manager's Compass: Insights for building effective engineering organizations' on Leanpub. Originally conceived as a comprehensive handbook for new engineering managers, the project pivoted to focus on tacit knowledge rarely discussed but essential for effectiveness. Taking a page from agile development, they chose to release iteratively and gather feedback rather than wait for a complete manuscript.

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