Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations
Nicole Forsgren - 2018
Through four years of groundbreaking research, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance—and what drives it—using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research. Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance.
Scrum Shortcuts Without Cutting Corners: Agile Tactics, Tools, & Tips
Ilan Goldstein - 2013
But when new Scrum practitioners attempt to apply Scrum theory and high-level approaches in actual projects, they often find it surprisingly difficult. In
Scrum Shortcuts without Cutting Corners,
Scrum expert Ilan Goldstein helps you translate the Scrum framework into reality to meet the Scrum challenges your formal training never warned you about. Drawing on his extensive agile experience in a wide range of projects and environments, Goldstein presents thirty proven, flexible shortcuts for optimizing Scrum processes, actions, and outcomes. Each shortcut walks you through applying a Scrum approach to achieve a tangible output. These easy-to-digest, actionable patterns address a broad range of topics including getting started, quality and metrics, team members and roles, managing stakeholders, estimation, continuous improvement and much more. Whatever your role,
Scrum Shortcuts without Cutting Corners
will help you take your Scrum skills to the next level and achieve better results in any project you participate in.
Are Your Lights On?: How to Figure Out What the Problem Really is
Donald C. Gause - 1982
A Problem2. Peter Pigeonhole Prepared A Petition3. What's Your Problem?Part 2: What is The Problem?4. Billy Brighteyes Bests The Bidders5. Billy Bites His Tongue6. Billy Back To The BiddersPart 3: What is The Problem Really?7. The Endless Chain8. Missing The Misfit9. Landing On The Level10. Mind Your MeaningPart 4: Whose Problem Is It?11. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes12. The Campus That Was All Spaced Out13. The Lights At The End Of The TunnelPart 5: Where Does It Come From?14. Janet Jaworski Joggles A Jerk15. Mister Matczyszyn Mends The Matter16. Make-Works And Take-Credits17. Examinations And Other PuzzlesPart 6: Do We Really Want To Solve It?18. Tom Tireless Tinkers With Toys19. Patience Plays Politics20. A Priority Assignment
Notes to a software team leader
Roy Osherove - 2012
Team leads usually have little to no idea how to handle people related issues – issues that affect how the morale, quality of work, and overall performance of the team, and of course impacts how easy or hard it is to implement “the new stuff”.Most team leaders are clueless as to how to handle their manager giving them an impossible due date, a team member reluctant to try anything new, or another team member teaching all the other members practices from 25 years ago that today only hurt the team.Why?No one teaches that to software team leads. Team leads today, in the overwhelming majority of places, are just developers who worked hard and stayed with the company long enough to be promoted. But they have no people or management skills - and those are very painfully needed when you are trying to drive the things you believe in inside an organization that has very little interest in changing.Team leadership is the next big thing that software developers need to conquer, or none of this unit testing, TDD, Agile or Lean thing is going to catch on, except in very small circles, that, by chance, happen to have the right people leading their teams.
Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling
Edgar H. Schein - 2013
But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry.Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” In this seminal work, Schein contrasts Humble Inquiry with other kinds of inquiry, shows the benefits Humble Inquiry provides in many different settings, and offers advice on overcoming the cultural, organizational, and psychological barriers that keep us from practicing it.
Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your User Stories
Gojko Adzic - 2014
Above all, this book will help you achieve the promise of agile and iterative delivery: to ensure that the right stuff gets delivered through productive discussions between delivery team members and business stakeholders.
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier - 2016
Drawing on years of experience training more than 10,000 busy managers from around the globe in practical, everyday coaching skills, Bungay Stanier reveals how to unlock your peoples' potential. He unpacks seven essential coaching questions to demonstrate how--by saying less and asking more--you can develop coaching methods that produce great results. – Get straight to the point in any conversation with The Kickstart Question – Stay on track during any interaction with The Awe Question – Save hours of time for yourself with The Lazy Question – and hours of time for others with The Strategic Question – Get to the heart of any interpersonal or external challenge with The Focus Question – and The Foundation Question – Ensure others find your coaching as beneficial as you do with The Learning Question A fresh innovative take on the traditional how-to manual, the book combines insider information with research based in neuroscience and behavioural economics, together with interactive training tools to turn practical advice into practiced habits. Witty and conversational, The Coaching Habit takes your work--and your workplace--from good to great. "Coaching is an art and it's far easier said than done. It takes courage to ask a question rather than offer up advice, provide and answer, or unleash a solution. giving another person the opportunity to find their own way, make their own mistakes, and create their own wisdom is both brave and vulnerable. In this practical and inspiring book, Michael shares seven transformative questions that can make a difference in how we lead and support. And he guides us through the tricky part - how to take this new information and turn it into habits and a daily practice. --Brené Brown, author of Rising Strong and Daring Greatly
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
Tom DeMarco - 1987
The answers aren't easy -- just incredibly successful.
Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow
Matthew Skelton - 2019
But how do you build the best team organization for your specific goals, culture, and needs? Team Topologies is a practical, step-by-step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction based on four fundamental team types and three team interaction patterns. It is a model that treats teams as the fundamental means of delivery, where team structures and communication pathways are able to evolve with technological and organizational maturity.In Team Topologies, IT consultants Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais share secrets of successful team patterns and interactions to help readers choose and evolve the right team patterns for their organization, making sure to keep the software healthy and optimize value streams.Team Topologies is a major step forward in organizational design for software, presenting a well-defined way for teams to interact and interrelate that helps make the resulting software architecture clearer and more sustainable, turning inter-team problems into valuable signals for the self-steering organization.
Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters
Ryan Singer - 2019
"This book is a guide to how we do product development at Basecamp. It’s also a toolbox full of techniques that you can apply in your own way to your own process.Whether you’re a founder, CTO, product manager, designer, or developer, you’re probably here because of some common challenges that all software companies have to face."
The Responsibility Process: Unlocking Your Natural Ability to Live and Lead with Power
Christopher Avery - 2016
The Responsibility Process proves it. The Responsibility Process is a natural mental pattern that helps you process thoughts about taking or avoiding responsibility. How you navigate it determines whether you are leading toward meaningful results or just marking time. This book gives you precision tools, practices, and leadership truths to navigate The Responsibility Process and lead yourself and others to freedom, power, and choice.FROM THE FOREWORD BY HENRY KIMSEY-HOUSE"The Responsibility Process offers powerful coaching. Christopher doesn't just define the problem and then leave you with it the way some books do. He provides abundant tools, practices, and wisdom for taking ownership, solving problems, and developing your consciousness as a leader. I know you will enjoy this book and live a better life for having read it." -HENRY KIMSEY-HOUSE, co-founder & lead designer of CTI, co-author of Co-Active Coaching & Co-Active LeadershipADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE RESPONSIBILITY PROCESS"This is an important book. The discovery and development of The Responsibility Process is a contribution to the psychology of success and happiness." -DEREK SIVERS, founder of CD Baby, author of Anything You Want"This book changed how I talk about responsibility in my training courses and with my teen daughters. An ownership mindset is critical to business agility. Avery brilliantly dissects how ownership (or the lack of it) works in the mind and what to do about it to lead yourself and others to freedom, happiness, and results that matter." -MIKE COHN, author of Succeeding with AgileCONTENTS Introduction: A More Productive Way to Live and Lead Part I. Personal Responsibility in Everyday Life 1. What is Personal Responsibility? 2. Responsibility != Accountability Part II. Three Tools for Understanding and Practicing Responsibility 3. The Responsibility Process 4. The Three Keys to Responsibility 5. The Catch Sooner Game Part III. Practicing and Mastering Responsibility 6. Lead Yourself First 7. Sharing Responsibility, Sharing Leadership 8. Developing Responsibility in Others 9. Leading the Organization of Choice Conclusion: On the Road to Mastery
The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer
Jeffrey K. Liker - 2003
Less inventory. The highest quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer. In factories around the globe, Toyota consistently raises the bar for manufacturing, product development, and process excellence. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide.The Toyota Way reveals the management principles behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. Dr. Jeffrey Liker, a renowned authority on Toyota's Lean methods, explains how you can adopt these principles--known as the "Toyota Production System" or "Lean Production"--to improve the speed of your business processes, improve product and service quality, and cut costs, no matter what your industry.Drawing on his extensive research on Toyota, Dr. Liker shares his insights into the foundational principles at work in the Toyota culture. He explains how the Toyota Production System evolved as a new paradigm of manufacturing excellence, transforming businesses across industries. You'll learn how Toyota fosters employee involvement at all levels, discover the difference between traditional process improvement and Toyota's Lean improvement, and learn why companies often think they are Lean--but aren't.
Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others
Brian W. Fitzpatrick - 2012
And in a perfect world, those who produce the best code are the most successful. But in our perfectly messy world, success also depends on how you work with people to get your job done.In this highly entertaining book, Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman cover basic patterns and anti-patterns for working with other people, teams, and users while trying to develop software. It's valuable information from two respected software engineers whose popular video series, "Working with Poisonous People," has attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers.You'll learn how to deal with imperfect people--those irrational and unpredictable beings--in the course of your work. And you'll discover why playing well with others is at least as important as having great technical skills. By internalizing the techniques in this book, you'll get more software written, be more influential, be happier in your career.
Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century
Jeff Lawson - 2021
The landscape has shifted from the classic build vs. buy question, to one of build vs. die. Companies have to get this right to survive. But how do they make this transition?Software developers are sought after, highly paid, and desperately needed to compete in the modern, digital economy. Yet most companies treat them like digital factory workers without really understanding how to unleash their full potential. Lawson argues that developers are the creative workforce who can solve major business problems and create hit products for customers—not just grind through rote tasks. From Google and Amazon, to one-person online software companies—companies that bring software developers in as partners are winning. Lawson shows how leaders who build industry changing software products consistently do three things well. First, they understand why software developers matter more than ever. Second, they understand developers and know how to motivate them. And third, they invest in their developers' success.As a software developer and public company CEO, Lawson uses his unique position to bridge the language and tools executives use with the unique culture of high performing, creative software developers. Ask Your Developer is a toolkit to help business leaders, product managers, technical leaders, software developers, and executives achieve their common goal—building great digital products and experiences.How to compete in the digital economy? In short: Ask Your Developer.
The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels
Michael D. Watkins - 2003
In this updated and expanded 10th anniversary edition, internationally known leadership transition expert Michael D. Watkins gives you the keys to successfully negotiating your next move—whether you’re onboarding into a new company, being promoted internally, or embarking on an international assignment.In The First 90 Days, Watkins outlines proven strategies that will dramatically shorten the time it takes to reach what he calls the "breakeven point" when your organization needs you as much as you need the job. This new edition includes a substantial new preface by the author on the new definition of a career as a series of transitions; and notes the growing need for effective and repeatable skills for moving through these changes. As well, updated statistics and new tools make this book more reader-friendly and useful than ever.As hundreds of thousands of readers already know, The First 90 Days is a road map for taking charge quickly and effectively during critical career transition periods—whether you are a first-time manager, a mid-career professional on your way up, or a newly minted CEO.