Book picks similar to
Better Onboarding by Krystal Higgins
design
ux
professional
product
Hardboiled Web Design
Andy Clarke - 2010
Do you really need another one?Hardboiled Web Design is different. It’s for people who want to understand why, when and how to use the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technologies in their everyday work. Not tomorrow or next week, but today. It won’t teach you the basics of writing markup or CSS, but if you’re hungry to learn about how the latest technologies and techniques will make your websites and applications more creative, flexible and adaptable, then this is the book for you.Are you ready to get hardboiled?
Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products That Customers Love
Roman Pichler - 2008
He describes a broad range of agile product management practices, including making agile product discovery work, taking advantage of emergent requirements, creating the minimal marketable product, leveraging early customer feedback, and working closely with the development team. Benefitting from Pichler's extensive experience, you'll learn how Scrum product ownership differs from traditional product management and how to avoid and overcome the common challenges that Scrum product owners face. Coverage includesUnderstanding the product owner's role: what product owners do, how they do it, and the surprising implicationsEnvisioning the product: creating a compelling product vision to galvanize and guide the team and stakeholdersGrooming the product backlog: managing the product backlog effectively even for the most complex productsPlanning the release: bringing clarity to scheduling, budgeting, and functionality decisionsCollaborating in sprint meetings: understanding the product owner's role in sprint meetings, including the dos and don'tsTransitioning into product ownership: succeeding as a product owner and establishing the role in the enterprise This book is an indispensable resource for anyone who works as a product owner, or expects to do so, as well as executives and coaches interested in establishing agile product management.
Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
Scott Belsky - 2010
Ideas for new businesses, solutions to the world's problems, and artistic breakthroughs are common, but great execution is rare. According to Scott Belsky, the capacity to make ideas happen can be developed by anyone willing to develop their organizational habits and leadership capability. That's why he founded Behance, a company that helps creative people and teams across industries develop these skills. Belsky has spent six years studying the habits of creative people and teams that are especially productive-the ones who make their ideas happen time and time again. After interviewing hundreds of successful creatives, he has compiled their most powerful-and often counterintuitive-practices, such as: •Generate ideas in moderation and kill ideas liberally •Prioritize through nagging •Encourage fighting within your team While many of us obsess about discovering great new ideas, Belsky shows why it's better to develop the capacity to make ideas happen-a capacity that endures over time.
Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
Sara Wachter-Boettcher - 2017
But few of us realize just how many oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares are baked inside the tech products we use every day. It’s time we change that.In Technically Wrong, Sara Wachter-Boettcher demystifies the tech industry, leaving those of us on the other side of the screen better prepared to make informed choices about the services we use—and to demand more from the companies behind them.
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
Geoffrey A. Moore - 2006
Crossing the Chasm has become the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets. This edition provides new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing, with special emphasis on the Internet. It's essential reading for anyone with a stake in the world's most exciting marketplace.
The Unicorn Project
Gene Kim - 2019
In The Phoenix Project, Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, is tasked with a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project is massively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced. In The Unicorn Project, we follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect, as she is exiled to the Phoenix Project, to the horror of her friends and colleagues, as punishment for contributing to a payroll outage. She tries to survive in what feels like a heartless and uncaring bureaucracy and to work within a system where no one can get anything done without endless committees, paperwork, and approvals. One day, she is approached by a ragtag bunch of misfits who say they want to overthrow the existing order, to liberate developers, to bring joy back to technology work, and to enable the business to win in a time of digital disruption. To her surprise, she finds herself drawn ever further into this movement, eventually becoming one of the leaders of the Rebellion, which puts her in the crosshairs of some familiar and very dangerous enemies. The Age of Software is here, and another mass extinction event looms--this is a story about "red shirt" developers and business leaders working together, racing against time to innovate, survive, and thrive in a time of unprecedented uncertainty...and opportunity.
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management
Will Larson - 2019
Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions of complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams, and, ultimately, the success or failure of companies. Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle orients around the particular challenges of engineering management--from sizing teams to technical debt to succession planning--and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Will Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management that leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes can apply. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.
Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off
Mark Kaplan - 2013
Working effectively to combat unconscious bias across differences such as gender, culture, generational, race, and sexual orientation not only leads to a more productive, innovative corporate culture but also to a better engagement with customers and clients. The Inclusion Dividend provides a framework to tap the bottom-line impact that results from an inclusive culture. Most leaders have the intent to be inclusive, however translating that intent into a truly inclusive outcome with employees, customers, and other stakeholders requires a focused change effort. The authors explain that challenge and provide straightforward advice on how to achieve the kind of meritocracy that will result in a tangible dividend and move companies ahead of their competition.
The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
Jason Beaird - 2007
A simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites.Understand the design process, from discovery to implementation Understand what makes "good design" Developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette Use textures, lines, points, shapes, volumes and depth Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images And much more Throughout the book, you'll follow an example design, from concept to completion, learning along the way. The book's full-color layout and large format (8" x 10") make The Principles Of Beautiful Wed Design a pleasure to read.Editorial Reviews"The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is a good book to kick start your graphic-design journey. The biggest benefit that I got from this book is the knowledge to learn from great designs as opposed to just admiring them in a state of awe." - Slashdot.org"Jason is a great writer, and the book is quite easy to read. It's put together wonderfully, including many full color screenshots and other forms of imagery that make the book a pleasure to read. I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone in Web design." - MondayByNoon"Jason Beaird covers web design in a way that non-designers can understand. He walks you through all of the aspects of design development from initial meeting to finished product. If you are just getting into web development, this is a must read." - Blogcritics.org"This is a thoroughly practical guide to web design that is very well written: good technical depth in easy-to-understand language with excellent illustrations and graphics that support the text. For many users it will be the only web-design text they will need. For those who want to further advance their skills and knowledge it will provide a sound foundation." - PC Update"His "Don't just tell, show!" style makes this book accessible to everyone... It strikes a carefully thought-out balance between describing principles and illustrating them. It is clear and well structured, with practical examples in every chapter." - Mitch Wheat
The Timeless Way of Building
Christopher W. Alexander - 1978
It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way. And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.”The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume to Alexander’s other works, A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment, in the Center for Environmental Structure series.
Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
Esther Derby - 2006
The tools and recipes in this book will help you uncover and solve hidden (and not-so-hidden) problems with your technology, your methodology, and those difficult "people" issues on your team.Project retrospectives help teams examine what went right and what went wrong on a project. But traditionally, retrospectives (also known as "post-mortems") are only helpful at the end of the project--too late to help. You need agile retrospectives that are iterative and incremental. You need to accurately find and fix problems to help the team today.Now, Derby and Larsen show you the tools, tricks, and tips you need to fix the problems you face on a software development project on an on-going basis. You'll see how to architect retrospectives in general, how to design them specifically for your team and organization, how to run them effectively, how to make the needed changes, and how to scale these techniques up. You'll learn how to deal with problems, and implement solutions effectively throughout the project--not just at the end.With regular tune-ups, your team will hum like a precise, world-class orchestra.ContentsForwardPrefaceIntroduction1. Helping your team inspect and adapt2. A retrospective custom-fit for your team3. Leading retrospectives4. Activities to set the stage5. Activities to gather data6. Activities to gather insights7. Activities to decide what to do8. Activities to close the retrospective9. Releases and project retrospectives10. Make it soA1. Facilitation suppliesA2. Debriefing activitiesA3. Activities quick reference matrixA4. Resources for learning facilitation skillsA5. Bibliography
Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process
Kenneth S. Rubin - 2012
Leading Scrum coach and trainer Kenny Rubin illuminates the values, principles, and practices of Scrum, and describes flexible, proven approaches that can help you implement it far more effectively. Whether you are new to Scrum or years into your use, this book will introduce, clarify, and deepen your Scrum knowledge at the team, product, and portfolio levels. Drawing from Rubin's experience helping hundreds of organizations succeed with Scrum, this book provides easy-to-digest descriptions enhanced by more than two hundred illustrations based on an entirely new visual icon language for describing Scrum's roles, artifacts, and activities.
Essential Scrum
will provide every team member, manager, and executive with a common understanding of Scrum, a shared vocabulary they can use in applying it, and practical knowledge for deriving maximum value from it.
Shipping Greatness: Practical lessons on building and launching outstanding software, learned on the job at Google and Amazon
Chris Vander Mey - 2012
In this guide, Chris Vander Mey provides a simplified, no-BS approach to the entire software lifecycle, distilled from lessons he learned as a manager at Amazon and Google.In the first part of the book, you’ll learn a step-by-step shipping process used by many of the best teams at Google and Amazon. Part II shows you the techniques, best practices, and skills you need to face an array of challenges in product, program, project, and engineering management.Clearly define your product and develop your mission and strategyAssemble your team and understand enough about systems to communicate with themCreate a beautiful, intuitive, and simple user experienceTrack your team’s deliverables and closely manage the testing processCommunicate clearly to gracefully handle requests, senior-management interactions, and feedback from various sourcesBuild metrics to track progress, spot problems, and celebrate successStick to your launch checklist and plan for marketing and PR
Tragic Design: The True Impact of Bad Design and How to Fix It
Jonathan Shariat - 2016
In this thought-provoking book, authors Jonathan Shariat and Cynthia Savard Saucier explain how poorly designed products can anger, sadden, exclude, and even kill people who use them. The designers responsible certainly didn't intend harm, so what can you do to avoid making similar mistakes?Tragic Design examines real case studies that show how certain design choices adversely affected users, and includes in-depth interviews with authorities in the design industry. Pick up this book and learn how you can be an agent of change in the design community and at your company.You'll explore:Designs that can kill, including the bad interface that doomed a young cancer patientDesigns that anger, through impolite technology and dark patternsHow design can inadvertently cause emotional painDesigns that exclude people through lack of accessibility, diversity, and justiceHow to advocate for ethical design when it isn't easy to do soTools and techniques that can help you avoid harmful design decisionsInspiring professionals who use design to improve our world
Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Entire Branding Team
Alina Wheeler - 2003
From researching the competition to translating the vision of the CEO, to designing and implementing an integrated brand identity programme, the meticulous development process of designing a brand identity is presented through a highly visible step-by-step approach in five phases.