The subtext of the title is; A developer's guide to successfully leading people and projects. It is aimed at people recently promoted or already making detailed decisions concerning the architecture, design or coding, hands-on development AND leading, managing or mentoring other people who are developing software. Typical roles this might include are team leaders and technical leads.

The book is organised around various topics pertinent to the new leader such as project management, leading people, stress and conflict management and making decisions. Within each topic the material is organised around questions for example my team spend too much time arguing. What can I do? Or, My boss is useless. How can I put up with this? How can I stop my project coming in late? Using this approach as a vehicle the author then proposes many common sense solutions to many issues. Naturally, one may not agree with all of the 'answers' but there is plenty of useful material and for the new leader it will be very helpful to consult this as handy reference material. The nature of the book tends to cover everything that one might do at work, for example there is advice on interviewing new recruits, making presentations and chairing a meeting. Interspersed with all of this is an 'infobar' where the author provides additional comments for example Stupid Procedures and then Hints on procedure writing.

The book is clear, well laid out with appropriate use of diagrams and it offers plenty of useful advice on all sorts of things. For a newly promoted person wondering what to do and how to do it this book provides a good starting point and a useful compendium of answers. Of course the individual will need to assess whether any particular answer is right for them in their circumstances.