Corey Ladas is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #50 on the Lean Software Engineering blog, highlights include:

• Where did middle managers come from? by Jeffrey Krames: A new anecdote from a conversation with Peter Drucker, which leaves the reader wondering…where should middle managers be heading?
• 7 habits of highly effective program managers by J.D. Meier: Microsoft has a lot of Program Managers. What do the some of the best ones have in common?
• Exploit the workers! by Pascal Van Cauwenberghe: A provocatively titled anecdote about applying Theory of Constraints to software development teams.
• Starbucks queue by Kevin Meyer (sorry just can’t get enough of Kevin this month): A simple visual control can help your friendly coffee shop staff level out response times in the face of irregular demand (something about this example looks familiar!).
• Is ‘Design To Cost’ better than ‘Estimation of Cost’: I think so! by Tom Gilb. “[Time and cost estimates] are an old custom, intended to prevent overruns, and to give management some feeling that the job will get done in time at a reasonable cost. But they do not in fact prevent overruns or assure value.”

We are working on a special annual management blog carnival that will include posts on several blogs from the period of late December through early January.