Business
"Emergent Design: The Evolutionary Nature of Professional Software Development" is a must read for anyone in the software development field. Whether you are a manager, a developer or a consultant, this book will help you view the profession differently. Scott does an incredible job of being a down-to-earth visionary... someone who can see things clearly from 50,000 feet, but has the technical legs to stand on the ground and look the code in the eye. What follows here does the book no justice
This "review" is more of a sketch of notes I took while reading this book. Crandall, Klein and Hoffman deliver an intensely practical look into a realm of psychology that could be very difficult to comprehend. The book surrounds the notion of Cognitive Task Analysis which is essentially a method of studying how people think. Klein's work has surrounded primarily the way people make decisions (Sources of Power) however in Working Minds the authors also look at how people learn to do new jobs,
Robert Austin manages to sum up in this short book the observations that bothered me for 16 years working for FedEx. As a courier for most of those years, I watched the company struggle with measurement dysfunction as they attempted to get more and more productivity from their employees. The symptoms I witnessed first-hand are so clearly described by Austin that it surprises me that no one at FedEx picked the book up and fixed the widespread problem. If you doubt me, stop your FedEx courier s
I have to admit that I get pretty geeked up about books like this one! In Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, Gary Klein addresses a phenomenal array of questions and issues surrounding the stated topic. Even though the book is written in the style of a research report, it is sprinkled with enough fascinating anecdotes that it will keep your interest even if you don't like that style. The stories make the reading easy, but Klein's approach to the material makes it interesting.
Naomi Karten has written a very comprehensive book dealing with a wide range of issues relating to communication within an organization. While she touches from time to time on personal communication issues, her primary focus is on organizational communication with an emphasis on the information technology field. As with most speakers who also write, her writing style reflects the fact that she is more comfortable with the spoken word and from time to time you get the impression that her humor
I made the mistake of reading the two Taleb books on my list out of order. In fact, had I read Fooled By Randomness first, I could have skipped reading The Black Swan since the bulk of the material is covered in the first book (and covered better in my opinion.) That is not to say that there was no new material in the second book, but rather that the new material was not enough to justify spending the time to read through the re-hash. As far as readability goes, I would recommend Fooled By Ra
Nassim Taleb writes an interesting book about unexpected events. His theories about probability provide a different perspective on some old topics. Taleb's writing style is engaging if not eccentric. He injects dry humor along with plenty of parenthetical comments. He is a self-described philosopher - trader, however unlike most philosophers, he doesn't seem to be too concerned with the reader thinking he is smart. Most modern philosophers seem more concerned with impressing the reader than
Wanting to have a better understanding of Theory of Constraints thinking, I decided to go back and read this novel that Goldratt wrote in the early 80's. The novel is about a production plant manager who is facing a crisis in his career. His plant is going to be shut down in 3 months if he and his team can't show better results. While Goldratt does introduce a "personal" story to go along with the business story, this is a novel you wouldn't want to read just for the "story". Like most busin
Before I was hired on at my current company, the entire organization did a group study and review of Crucial Conversations. After hearing my boss and others talk about the book, I decided to give it a read and fortunately he had an extra copy for me. The book covers a lot of very practical advice for dealing with conversational situations that frankly we all find ourselves in almost daily. While it tries to cover a broad span of conversations (home life, work life, social life) I found it to
Malcolm Gladwell wrote "The Tipping Point" another book that I have on my list to read but I came to this one first. "Blink" is an interesting foray into the power of the unconscious mind... or rather unconscious thinking. Whether we realize it or not, our brains are working non-stop and sometimes we come to conclusions without knowing how or why. Gladwell's exploration of this topic is a detailed, anecdote-filled book that is a pleasure to read and will spark some interesting thoughts along
Ram Charan is a fascinating business consultant with decades of experience dispensing advice to the leaders of many of the world's largest and most influential companies. I recently added this book to my personal collection and was excited to get the opportunity to read it. While the book is geared towards CEO's and other high level management types, there is plenty of advice in the book for anyone who wants to understand how to be more effective in the business world.
The Google Guys are fascinating to a lot of people and of course since I am a software developer they are intriguing to me on many levels. David Vise does a very good job of unveiling the facts and providing some insight into the world of Google. There is a touch of sycophancy in the tone of the book so I read it with the proverbial grain of salt, however true to his journalistic roots, Mr. Vise did portray at least some of the darker side of Google. While I use Google on a daily basis and st
This is a collection of Galbraith's works that, according to the author in the preface, were chosen by his associates, his publisher and the reading public. This books serves as a quick primer on the economics of this renowned economist as well as a fascinating overview of his literary life.