Architecting for the AWS Cloud: Best Practices (AWS Whitepaper)


Amazon We Services - 2016
    It discusses cloud concepts and highlights various design patterns and best practices. This documentation is offered for free here as a Kindle book, or you can read it in PDF format at https://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/.

The Visible Ops Handbook: Starting ITIL in 4 Practical Steps


Kevin Behr - 2004
    Visible Ops is comprised of four prescriptive and self-fueling steps that take an organization from any starting point to a continually improving process. MAKING ITIL ACTIONABLE Although the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides a wealth of best practices, it lacks prescriptive guidance: What do you implement first, and how do you do it? Moreover, the ITIL books remain relatively expensive to distribute. Other information, publicly available from a variety of sources, is too general and vague to effectively aid organizations that need to start or enhance process improvement efforts. The Visible Ops booklet provides a prescriptive roadmap for organizations beginning or continuing their IT process improvement journey. WHY DO WE NEED VISIBLE OPS? The Visible Ops methodology was developed because there was not a satisfactory answer to the question: "I believe in the need for IT process improvement, but where do I start?" Since 2000, Gene Kim and Kevin Behr have met with hundreds of IT organizations and identified eight high-performing IT organizations with the highest service levels, best security, and best efficiencies. For years, they studied these high-performing organizations to figure out the secrets to their success. Visible Ops codifies how these organizations achieved their transformation from good to great, showing how interested organizations can replicate the key processes of these high-performing organizations in just four steps: 1. Stabilize Patient, Modify First Response - Almost 80% of outages are self-inflicted. The first step is to control risky changes and reduce MTTR by addressing how changes are managed and how problems are resolved. 2. Catch and Release, Find Fragile Artifacts - Often, infrastructure exists that cannot be repeatedly replicated. In this step, we inventory assets, configurations and services, to identify those with the lowest change success rates, highest MTTR and highest business downtime costs. 3. Establish Repeatable Build Library - The highest return on investment is implementing effective release management processes. This step creates repeatable builds for the most critical assets and services, to make it "cheaper to rebuild than to repair." 4. Enable Continuous Improvement - The previous steps have progressively built a closed-loop between the Release, Control and Resolution processes. This step implements metrics to allow continuous improvement of all of these process areas, to best ensure that business objectives are met.

Test-Driven JavaScript Development


Christian Johansen - 2010
     Test-Driven JavaScript Development is a complete, best-practice guide to agile JavaScript testing and quality assurance with the test-driven development (TDD) methodology. Leading agile JavaScript developer Christian Johansen covers all aspects of applying state-of-the-art automated testing in JavaScript environments, walking readers through the entire development lifecycle, from project launch to application deployment, and beyond.Using real-life examples driven by unit tests, Johansen shows how to use TDD to gain greater confidence in your code base, so you can fearlessly refactor and build more robust, maintainable, and reliable JavaScript code at lower cost. Throughout, he addresses crucial issues ranging from code design to performance optimization, offering realistic solutions for developers, QA specialists, and testers.Coverage includes - Understanding automated testing and TDD - Building effective automated testing workflows - Testing code for both browsers and servers (using Node.js) - Using TDD to build cleaner APIs, better modularized code, and more robust software - Writing testable code - Using test stubs and mocks to test units in isolation - Continuously improving code through refactoring - Walking through the construction and automated testing of fully functional softwareThe accompanying Web site, tddjs.com, contains all of the book's code listings and additional resources.

The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable... about Restoring Sanity to the Most Important Organization in Your Life


Patrick Lencioni - 2008
    As a husband and the father of four young boys, Lencioni realized the discrepancy between the time and energy his clients put into running their organizations and the reactive way most people run their personal lives. Having experienced the stress of a frantic family firsthand, he and his wife began applying some of the tools he uses with Fortune 500 companies at home, and with surprising results.

Above All Else


Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld - 2011
    Dan survived a plane crash from which sixteen of the twenty-two people on board were killed. He was left critically injured and woke up from a six-week-long coma with a broken neck, broken skull, severe head trauma, a collapsed lung, and other serious internal injuries. Against all odds, Dan recovered and went on to become one of the greatest competitive skydiver in the world. With the love and support of friends and family, Dan was able not only to resurrect his life but return to skydiving to achieve greater heights than he could have ever imagined. His techniques and methods for excelling are applicable to all people, no matter their goals. Dan uses his experiences to teach the lessons he's learned--as a competitor, coach, business owner, father, and husband--to help others achieve their dreams, overcome obstacles, and reach their peak performance.

Scrum Mastery: From Good To Great Servant-Leadership


Geoff Watts - 2013
    But being a great ScrumMaster, one who truly embodies the principles of servant-leadership and helps move a team to the high performance levels possible with Scrum, is much harder and much more elusive. In his over ten years of coaching numerous Scrum teams, the highly-respected and experienced Scrum coach Geoff Watts has identified patterns that separate a good ScrumMaster from a great one. In this book, he not only illustrates these patterns through stories of his own experiences and those of the many Scrum teams he has encountered but offers practical guidance for you on your own path to greatness.In this book you will learn:The skills and characteristics of great ScrumMastersHow to generate, maintain and increase engagement from the teamHow to increase the effectiveness of the Scrum meetings, such as retrospectives and daily scrums.How to foster a more creative and collaborative teamHow to increase the performance of the teamHow to know when you are a successful ScrumMaster\Scrum Mastery is for practicing ScrumMasters who want to develop themselves into a great servant-leader capable of taking their teams beyond simple process compliance.Comments on the bookMike Cohn, in his foreword for the book, said:"Most books rehash well-trod territory and I don’t finish them any wiser. I am positive I will be referring back to this book for many years" Roman Pichler, author of Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products That Customers Love said:"I am thoroughly impressed with how comprehensive and well-written the book is. It will be indispensable for many people"Jean Tabaka, Agile Fellow, Rally Software:"Geoff brings us a personal and inspired peak into what truly moves us from good to great: great in how we serve; great in how we lead; great in how we create mastery in our teams and organizations; and, great in how we recognize the impediments to our own growth to greatness. Scrum mastery is a skill that can be honed and Geoff gives us rich tools to sharpen our craft."

Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy


Eli Schwartz
    Unfortunately, it's not always easy to know what will successfully drive traffic, leads, and sales. If you want to stand out from your competition, your SEO needs a distinctive blend of creativity and logic.Maybe you're a marketing manager or executive who is responsible for SEO growth but do not fully understand how it works. Or maybe you are a seasoned SEO pro looking to optimize further. Either way, this book is your behind-the-scenes guide to online visibility.When it comes to SEO, success often depends not on what you do but on how you do it. That is why Product-Led SEO digs deep into the logic and theory of SEO instead of offering step-by-step guidelines and techniques. You will learn to develop your own best practices and see where most SEO strategies go astray. If your main goal is driving traffic, you are leaving sales on the table.

Innovation as Usual: How to Help Your People Bring Great Ideas to Life


Paddy Miller - 2013
    Every so often employees are sent to “Brainstorm Island”: an off-site replete with trendy lectures, creative workshops, and overenthusiastic facilitators. But once they return, it’s back to business as usual.Innovation experts Paddy Miller and Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg suggest a better approach. They recommend that leaders at all levels become “innovation architects,” creating an ecosystem in which people engage in key innovation behaviors as part of their daily work.In short, this book is about getting to a state of “innovation as usual,” where regular employees—in jobs like finance, marketing, sales, or operations—make innovation happen in a way that’s both systemic and sustainable.Instead of organizing brainstorming sessions, idea jams, and off-sites that rarely result in success, leaders should guide their people in what the authors call the “5 + 1 keystone behaviors” of innovation: focus, connect, tweak, select, stealthstorm, (and the + 1) persist:• Focus beats freedom: Direct people to look only for ideas that matter to the business• Insight comes from the outside: Urge people to connect to new worlds• First ideas are flawed: Challenge people to tweak and reframe their initial ideas• Most ideas are bad ideas: Guide people to select the best ideas and discard the rest• Stealthstorming rules: Help people navigate the politics of innovation• Creativity is a choice: Motivate everyone to persist in the five keystone behaviorsUsing examples from a wide range of companies such as Pfizer, Index Ventures, Lonza, Go Travel, Prehype, DSM, and others, Innovation as Usual lights the way toward embedding creativity in the DNA of the workplace.So cancel that off-site. Instead, read Innovation as Usual—and put innovation at the core of your business.

Leadership That Gets Results


Daniel Goleman - 2001
    This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. A leader's singular job is to get results. But even with all the leadership training programs and "expert" advice available, effective leadership still eludes many people and organizations. One reason, says Daniel Goleman, is that such experts offer advice based on inference, experience, and instinct, not on quantitative data. Now, drawing on research of more than 3,000 executives, Goleman explores which precise leadership behaviors yield positive results. He outlines six distinct leadership styles, each one springing from different components of emotional intelligence. Each style has a distinct effect on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and, in turn, on its financial performance. The styles, by name and brief description alone, will resonate with anyone who leads, is led, or, as is the case with most of us, does both. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision. Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony. Democratic leaders build consensus through participation. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction. And coaching leaders develop people for the future. The research indicates that leaders who get the best results don't rely on just one leadership style; they use most of the styles in any given week. Goleman details the types of business situations each style is best suitedfor, and he explains how leaders who lack one or more of these styles can expand their repertories. He maintains that with practice leaders can switch among leadership styles to produce powerful results, thus turning the art of leadership into a science.

The Starbucks Story


John Simmons - 2005
    You can get a cup at any caf, sandwich bar or restaurant anywhere. So how did Starbucks manage to reinvent coffee as a whole new experience, and create a hugely successful brand in the process? The Starbucks Story tells the brand's story from its origins in a Seattle fish market to its growing global presence today. This is a story that has unfolded quickly - at least in terms of conventional business development. Starbucks is a phenomenon. Unknown 15 years ago, it now ranks among the 100 most valuable brands in the world. It has become the quintessential brand of the modern age, built around the creation of an experience that can be consistently reproduced across the world. Originally published in 2004 as 'My Sister's A Barista: How they made Starbucks a home away from home', this new 2012 edition has been updated to bring the brand up to date.

Software Design X-Rays: Fix Technical Debt with Behavioral Code Analysis


Adam Tornhill - 2018
    And that’s just for starters. Because good code involves social design, as well as technical design, you can find surprising dependencies between people and code to resolve coordination bottlenecks among teams. Best of all, the techniques build on behavioral data that you already have: your version-control system. Join the fight for better code!

Read to Lead: The Simple Habit That Expands Your Influence and Boosts Your Career


Jeff Brown - 2021
    It's responsible for unlocking limitless creativity and influence. It's known to reduce stress, improve decision-making skills, and make you a better leader. What is it? Reading. And it's the single best thing you can do to improve yourself professionally.Reading more and better books creates opportunities for you to learn new skills, rise above your competition, and build a successful career. In Read to Lead you'll learn- why you need to read like your career depends on it- the five science-backed reasons reading will help you build your career- how to absorb a book into your bloodstream- a technique that can double (or triple!) your reading speed- tips on creating a lifetime reading habit- and moreIf you want to lead a more satisfied life, have more intelligent conversations, and broaden your mind, you need to read to lead!

Lead to Succeed and You Won't Manage to Fail


Corey W. Grant - 2011
    Lead to Succeed and You Won't Manage to Fail gives you an inside look at what it takes to not only become a great manager but a legendary leader. Written with the career focused leader in mind this book is a straight forward look at what successful leaders do to maximize their effectiveness both before and after they become managers. Whether you manage a small community organization or a large Fortune 500 company this book will help you become a more effective leader by providing you with an in depth insight into what great managers think about and consider when building a successful organization. Learn first hand what it takes to lead like a legend, because if you can lead well... you won't manage to fail.

Don't Waste Your Time Homeschooling: 72 Things I Wish I'd Known


Traci Matt - 2014
    "Don’t Waste Your Time Homeschooling: 72 Things I Wish I’d Known" features concrete suggestions to help you: • Discover ways to take your family’s pulse and maintain a peaceful household. • Realize how easy it can be to sidestep the isolation trap. • Find creative ways to maintain your own identity amid a sea of others’ needs. • Learn the one easy habit to help avoid conflict with busy teen drivers. • Explain to others how your children are being properly socialized.

Software Architecture in Practice


Len Bass - 2003
    Distinct from the details of implementation, algorithm, and data representation, an architecture holds the key to achieving system quality, is a reusable asset that can be applied to subsequent systems, and is crucial to a software organization's business strategy.Drawing on their own extensive experience, the authors cover the essential technical topics for designing, specifying, and validating a system. They also emphasize the importance of the business context in which large systems are designed. Their aim is to present software architecture in a real-world setting, reflecting both the opportunities and constraints that companies encounter. To that end, case studies that describe successful architectures illustrate key points of both technical and organizational discussions.Topics new to this edition include: Architecture design and analysis, including the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) Capturing quality requirements and achieving them through quality scenarios and tactics Using architecture reconstruction to recover undocumented architectures Documenting architectures using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) New case studies, including Web-based examples and a wireless Enterprise JavaBeans™ (EJB) system designed to support wearable computers The financial aspects of architectures, including use of the Cost Benefit Analysis Method (CBAM) to make decisions If you design, develop, or manage the building of large software systems (or plan to do so), or if you are interested in acquiring such systems for your corporation or government agency, use Software Architecture in Practice, Second Edition, to get up to speed on the current state of software architecture.