'Self-Help for Programmers That Lead Programmers: A Guide to Herding Cats' is designed as a comprehensive guide to the management challenges of leading programmers. As the title indicates, this challenge is analogous to herding cats, a very difficult leadership task. Rainwater introduces the new manager to concepts that help encourage and facilitate adaptation to the leadership role. A study of the varieties of programmer personality traits helps the reader to understand how best to use his team for the job at hand, and why some individuals may be difficult to manage. This is followed by a look into the need to manage the manager, and how to accomplish this most personal task. Several chapters are devoted to the administrative aspects of the job, such as managing meetings, hiring and firing, and principles of organizing your job for success. The book also describes task management software built by the author, which is available for download when you own the book. A chapter is
