Read Steve McConnell's Rapid Development (Score 3)

I think there should be a law that if you're going to be a software engineering manager (actually, a software engineering anything), you must read Rapid Development . It is a distillation of all of the significant research in software engineering done up to the date of publication (a few years ago).

Did you know that the productivity between the best teams and the worst teams varies by a factor of at least 2.6? Do you know how to make sure your team is up at that 2.6 end?

Unfortunately, there is little you can do to get your team up to the 2.6 end. However, there's lots of stuff you can do to ensure they're down at the 1.0 end. Bad managers (which seem to be the majority) don't even realize they're destroying their team's productivity on a daily basis. This book can help you avoid dooming your team to the 1.0 end of the spectrum.

As a side note, I'm in the exact same stage of my career as you. However, I'm in a highly technical team, where the norm is to be on the "techical ladder". So I'm not feeling any pressure to jump into management.

But I have recently come to realize that I'm getting passed over in promotions relative to my peers who have chosen the management ladder. And this is in a company that prides itself in having a technical ladder. I know many companies don't even have that as an option.

Consequently, I'm contemplating whether or not it makes sense for me to try mangagement. That's where the rewards seem to be, and I think I could make a difference in getting my team (and perhaps someday, the entire organization) up to that 2.6 level of productivity.

That's a demon I'm still wrestling with (one of several).