Well a wise colleague once told me, "the worst managers have read all the books :-)", the best nugget of wisdom I've heard for a while! And so on that note I would recommend:
- Adams, S. The Dilbert principle: A cubicle’s-eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads and other workplace afflictions. Pan Macmillan, 2000.
- Lopp, M. Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager. Apress, 2016.
The following more serious minded tomes because I consider them to be part of the core canon of software engineering management literature I would suggest:
- Brooks Jr., F. P. The Mythical Man-Month : Essays on Software Engineering, anniversary ed. Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., Reading, Mass., 1995.
- DeMarco, T., and Lister, T. Peopleware: productive projects and teams, 2nd ed. Dorset House Publishing, New York, NY, 1999.
A little more recent (still over a decade old at this stage) but still significant publication worth having on the shelf if only for self-indoctrination would be:
- Beck, K. Extreme Programming Explained : embrace change. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 2000 (or 2004).
