Need a shortcut to a degree in shipping great software? Successful team leaders must have an extremely broad skill set to find the right product, work through a complex and ever-changing development process, and do it all incredibly quickly. In this guide, Chris Vander Mey provides a simplified, no-BS approach to the entire software lifecycle, distilled from lessons he learned as a manager at Amazon and Google.

In the first part of the book, you’ll learn a step-by-step shipping process used by many of the best teams at Google and Amazon. Part II shows you the techniques, best practices, and skills you need to face an array of challenges in product, program, project, and engineering management.

• Clearly define your product and develop your mission and strategy
• Assemble your team and understand enough about systems to communicate with them
• Create a beautiful, intuitive, and simple user experience
• Track your team’s deliverables and closely manage the testing process
• Communicate clearly to gracefully handle requests, senior-management interactions, and feedback from various sources
• Build metrics to track progress, spot problems, and celebrate success
• Stick to your launch checklist and plan for marketing and PR

Review

"Shipping Greatness is a perfectly-sized primer on how to lead a software project...it's quite possibly the  Dungeon Master's Guide of anyone's set of software books." -- Matt Shobe, co-founder of FeedBurner

"Shipping Greatness condenses years of experience on working with world class products into an accessible, practical guide. Whether you're looking for reference as an aspiring software leader, or need a handbook to keep everyone on the same page, it is a must-have guide for software leaders." -- Mike Smith, CTO Disney Interactive

"If you are about to start a project and only have time to read a single book, this is the one." --Lars Thorup, software consultant, CEO

"This book provides the tools and insight to be a better leader." --David Lutz, Senior Systems Engineer, Splunk

"It's the perfect book for folks who have an idea for a product, know they can build it, and are jazzed to get started."  -- Tamara Adlin, author of The Persona Lifecycle

From the Back Cover

This is your shortcut to a degree in shipping great software. Team leaders today need an extremely broad skill set to find the right product, work through a complex and ever-changing development process, and do it all quickly. In this guide, Chris Vander Mey provides a simplified, no-BS approach to the entire software lifecycle, distilled from lessons he learned as a manager at Amazon and Google.

In the first part of the book, you'll learn a step-by-step shipping process used by many of the best teams at Google and Amazon. Part II shows you the techniques, best practices, and skills you need to face an array of challenges in product, program, project, and engineering management.

• Clearly define your product and develop your mission and strategy
• Assemble your team and become sufficiently technical to work with them
• Create a beautiful, intuitive, and simple user experience
• Track your team's deliverables and closely manage the testing process
• Communicate clearly to gracefully handle requests, senior-management BS, and other feedback
• Build metrics to track progress, spot problems, and celebrate success
• Stick to your launch checklist and plan your marketing and PR