The book emphasizes that we all contain the ingredients for leadership, though some elements are better developed than others. "Anyone can improve as a leader simply by building the strength of our weakest elements, " author Gerald M. Weinberg writes. "Mr. Universe doesn't have more muscles than I do, just better developed ones."On one level, the book is an extremely down-to-earth, how-to guide. On a second, it is a set of parables, full of analogies that stick in the mind -- the art of management taught through stories about pinball, tinkertoys, and electric blankets. On yet another level, this is a book about the philosophy and psychology of managing technical projects. On every level, the author brings these entertaining and enlightening elements together to teach you the essentials of leadership.You'll learn how to-- master your fear of becoming a leader-- be creative in solving problems-- motivate people while maintaining quality-- gain organizational power-- plan personal change.-- Whether you manage people, are managed by people, or just want to change the way you interact with others, this book is about success. How to plan it, how to make it happen -- Becoming a Technical Leader shows you how to do it!

    What if your software-intensive projects delivered on time - or early - without sacrificing quality? 2. What if your IT department's job was to deliver profits, through software, rather than just software? 3. What if your software developers worked in a way they loved - that didn't feel as if they spent their days ROLLING ROCKS UPHILL? ROLLING ROCKS DOWNHILL is a business novel in the tradition of Eli Goldratt's "The Goal". It introduces Throughput-Driven Development - the combination of Lean, Agile and Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC) thinking to corporate software development.

    Cracking the PM Interview is a comprehensive book about landing a product management role in a startup or bigger tech company. Learn how the ambiguously-named "PM" (product manager / program manager) role varies across companies, what experience you need, how to make your existing experience translate, what a great PM resume and cover letter look like, and finally, how to master the interview: estimation questions, behavioral questions, case questions, product questions, technical questions, and the super important "pitch."

    You can think of this problem as a variant of the well known "telephone game", where some trivial rumor is repeated from one person to the next until it has become distorted beyond recognition and blown up out of all proportion.Unfortunately, the objects of this telephone game are generally considered cornerstone truths of the discipline, to the point that their acceptance now seems to hinder further progress.In this short ebook, we will take a look at some of those "ground truths": the claimed 10x variation in productivity between developers; the "software crisis"; the cost-of-change curve; the "cone of uncertainty"; and more. We'll hone our scholarship skills by looking up the original source for these ideas and taking a deep dive in the history of their development. We'll assess the real weight of the evidence behind these ideas.And we'll confront the scary prospect of moving the state of the art forward in a discipline that has had the ground kicked from under it.

    His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days—Jonah—to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done.The story of Alex's fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Eli Goldratt.

    Test-driven development (TDD) is a modern software development practice that can dramatically reduce the number of defects in systems, produce more maintainable code, and give you the confidence to change your software to meet changing needs. But C++ programmers have been ignored by those promoting TDD--until now. In this book, Jeff Langr gives you hands-on lessons in the challenges and rewards of doing TDD in C++.Modern C++ Programming With Test-Driven Development, the only comprehensive treatment on TDD in C++ provides you with everything you need to know about TDD, and the challenges and benefits of implementing it in your C++ systems. Its many detailed code examples take you step-by-step from TDD basics to advanced concepts. As a veteran C++ programmer, you're already writing high-quality code, and you work hard to maintain code quality. It doesn't have to be that hard. In this book, you'll learn: how to use TDD to improve legacy C++ systems how to identify and deal with troublesome system dependencies how to do dependency injection, which is particularly tricky in C++ how to use testing tools for C++ that aid TDD new C++11 features that facilitate TDD As you grow in TDD mastery, you'll discover how to keep a massive C++ system from becoming a design mess over time, as well as particular C++ trouble spots to avoid. You'll find out how to prevent your tests from being a maintenance burden and how to think in TDD without giving up your hard-won C++ skills. Finally, you'll see how to grow and sustain TDD in your team. Whether you're a complete unit-testing novice or an experienced tester, this book will lead you to mastery of test-driven development in C++.What You Need A C++ compiler running under Windows or Linux, preferably one that supports C++11. Examples presented in the book were built under gcc 4.7.2. Google Mock 1.6 (downloadable for free; it contains Google Test as well) or an alternate C++ unit testing tool. Most examples in the book are written for Google Mock, but it isn't difficult to translate them to your tool of choice. A good programmer's editor or IDE. cmake, preferably. Of course, you can use your own preferred make too. CMakeLists.txt files are provided for each project. Examples provided were built using cmake version 2.8.9. Various freely-available third-party libraries are used as the basis for examples in the book. These include: - cURL - JsonCpp - Boost (filesystem, date_time/gregorian, algorithm, assign) Several examples use the boost headers/libraries. Only one example uses cURL and JsonCpp.

    In Think Yourself Thin, Smith helps you uncover the root of your struggle and address the spiritual or emotional issues tied to your eating behavior. By applying the strategies outlined in this book, you will have the tools you need to take control of your weight, and thus your health, and experience the joy of having your dream body. Divided into four parts, Smith’s book uncovers the five psychological stages required to lose weight and keep it off. Smith also introduces the all-new SUCCESS System detailing the mental habits and approaches necessary for permanent weight loss. Filled with inspiring, motivational success stories and user-friendly principles that provide the guidance you need to eat in a manner that helps the body burn fat and lose weight, Think Yourself Thin makes long-term weight loss a reality by starting with what matters most.

    This classic guide—fully updated for Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000, including 64-bit extensions—describes the architecture and internals of the Windows operating system. You’ll find hands-on experiments you can use to experience Windows internal behavior firsthand, along with advanced troubleshooting information to help you keep your systems running smoothly and efficiently. Whether you’re a developer or a system administrator, you’ll find critical architectural insights that you can quickly apply for better design, debugging, performance, and support.Get in-depth, inside knowledge of the Windows operating system: Understand the key mechanisms that configure and control Windows, including dispatching, startup and shutdown, and the registry Explore the Windows security model, including access, privileges, and auditing Investigate internal system architecture using the kernel debugger and other tools Examine the data structures and algorithms that deal with processes, threads, and jobs Observe how Windows manages virtual and physical memory Understand the operation and format of NTFS, and troubleshoot file system access problems View the Windows networking stack from top to bottom, including mapping, APIs, name resolution, and protocol drivers Troubleshoot boot problems and perform crash analysis

    This minibook explains why salvation, healing, and many other blessings belong to the believer through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ!

    Tech companies in general lack the experience, tools, texts, and frameworks to do it well. And the handful of books that share tips and tricks of engineering management don t explain how to supervise employees in the face of growth and change.In this book, author Camille Fournier takes you through the stages of technical management, from mentoring interns to working with the senior staff. You ll get actionable advice for approaching various obstacles in your path, whether you re a new manager, a mentor, or a more experienced leader looking for fresh advice. Pick up this book and learn how to become a better manager and leader in your organization. * Discover how to manage small teams and large/multi-level teams * Understand how to build and bootstrap a unifying culture in teams * Deal with people problems and learn how to mentor other managers and new leaders * Learn how to manage yourself: avoid common pitfalls that challenge many leaders * Obtain several practices that you can incorporate and practice along the way

    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.

    Akka uses Actors-independently executing processes that communicate via message passing—as the foundation for fault-tolerant applications where individual actors can fail without crashing everything. Perfect for high-volume applications that need to scale rapidly, Akka is an efficient foundation for event-driven systems that want to scale elastically up and out on demand, both on multi-core processors and across server nodes.Akka in Action is a comprehensive tutorial on building message-oriented systems using Akka. The book takes a hands-on approach, where each new concept is followed by an example that shows you how it works, how to implement the code, and how to (unit) test it. You'll learn to test and deploy an actor system and scale it up and out, showing off Akka's fault tolerance. As you move along, you'll explore a message-oriented event-driven application in Akka. You'll also tackle key issues like how to model immutable messages and domain models, and apply patterns like Event Sourcing, and CQRS. The book concludes with practical advice on how to tune and customize a system built with Akka.

    I wrote it because I believe we can do better than the accepted "status quo" in the software industry. It took me years to learn what I needed to learn to come up with my version of the #NoEstimates approach. You can do it in weeks! The techniques and ideas described here will help you explore the #NoEstimates universe in a very practical and hands-on manner. You will walk through Carmen's story. Carmen is a senior, very experienced project manager who is now confronted with a very difficult project. One would say, an impossible project. Through the book, and with the help of Herman, Carmen discovers and slowly adopts #NoEstimates which helps her turn that project around. Just like I expect it will help with the project you are in right now. The book also includes many concrete approaches you can use to adopt #NoEstimates, or just adopt those practices on their own.

    I wrote this book for three major reasons: (1) to help move business and technology planning from a systems and process-level view to a more strategy-driven enterprise-level view, (2) to promote and explain the emerging profession of EA, and (3) to provide the first textbook on the subject of EA, which is suitable for graduate and undergraduate levels of study. To date, other books on EA have been practitioner books not specifically oriented toward a student who may be learning the subject with little to no previous exposure. Therefore, this book contains references to related academic research and industry best practices, as well as my own observations about potential future practices and the direction of this emerging profession.

    A celebrated writing coach with a sense of humor and a gentle touch, she’s also a master writer herself with a long and distinguished career in both teaching and practicing the art of writing.The Book on Writing contains 25 chapters in three sections: A dozen essential but easy-to-apply guidelines to good writing, from the importance of clarity to the value of a conversational tone. Paula LaRocque believes learning is easier and more successful when we are not only told but also shown. So her Book on Writing is chockfull of actual writing examples that supplement and illustrate principles that apply as naturally to fiction as they do to nonfiction.How to tell a story—from building suspense, to effective description, to the uses of metaphor and literary devices. Paula LaRocque also deals with the narrative “engine” and the value of the archetype in plotting and characterization—as well as with pace and speed and leveling what she terms writing’s “speedbumps.” A clear and concise handbook that deals with common problems in grammar, usage, punctuation, and style—the kind of problems that often trouble even wordsmiths. The handbook also debunks pesky language “rules” that are actually myths. The Book on Writing is one-stop shopping for writers. Read it once, and you’ll be a better writer. Read it often, and you’ll be among the best.