In their new book Leadership, Teamwork and Trust: Building a Competitive Software Company, authors Watts S. Humphrey and James W. Over offer managers advice on the best way to lead application development teams to success. They say that an archaic, overly bureaucratic management structure can lead to quality control problems and sends the message that programmers can’t be trusted to take control of their own projects. Instead, they encourage managers to hire workers with a proven track record who are able to manage themselves.
They also encourage managers to back up their opinions with facts and data, instead of relying on their status within the company. In addition, they say mangers should direct praise and criticism at the team instead of at the individual.
