Engineering Management – The Missing Manual
summary
Argues the brain’s job is to predict the future, so teams of high-modeling engineers pay the price of anxiety when their mental models break; all anxiety comes from model invalidation. Recommends replacing top‑down plans with central principles and distributed decisions: publish ≤3 durable principles, measurable objectives, be ruthlessly transparent about why, push the how to ICs, teach people how decisions are made, use coin‑toss + tight monitoring to resolve coin‑toss impasses, and design low‑blast‑radius experiments so pivots work fast.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction and premise
- 1:53Defining a useful model
- 4:42The biology of the brain
- 9:21Intelligence and model building
- 13:56Anxiety as the price of smarts
- 22:23Causes of model invalidation
- 27:41The leader's role in safety
- 38:43Principles over central control
- 47:53Conclusion and Q&A
- 51:32Managing up and growth
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